Damn OEM calipers!

[viprez586]

Well to start i knew my rear caliper was seized up or sticking, at first i thought it was the pins, after driving 200 miles on and off it didn't get any better after greasing the pins. I decided to see how much heat was coming off of my rear right caliper one day after driving 5 miles. Before i even bent down to stick my hand in between the rim and rotor i could feel the heat.
Rebuild time! Thing was my bleeder screw snapped off of one my front calipers a while back.
To start, that little 3/8" drive "cube" you can get to turn in the piston on the rear calipers... yeah maybe if they were brand new calipers. I used a channel lock to turn the pistons, being careful not to tear the boot. Upon inspecting the rear caliper, i caught the brake pads just in time before they completely went metal to metal and i had to buy a new rotor. With everything apart i cleaned the piston and all the seals due to the rebuild kit not readily available.
Now the front bleeder...WTF 1hr later after drilling, heating, drilling, heating, grinding. OH it came out!! I torn down that caliper and cleaned it up good. Only thing that was a problem was this caliper seemed aftermarket as the threads where 8mm X 1.0 X35mm whereas every other bleeder was 10mmX1.0X35mm. This posed another problem so we had to buy the assortment of bleeder screws and make it work.
After that worked out...time to bleed the system. I used denatured alcohol to clean the system first, then bled the system twice with DOT 3.
I can stop now!, and coast without being dragged down.

 

[dikdiamond]

I had a similar problem with my passenger rear,but I didn't have as much problems as you did...I was able to lube the slide and work it back and forth enough to get it to move on it's own and not lock up. I had a problem with the fronts when I bought the car,though. Drivers side had the two bolts flip-flopped and black goo came out of the lines when I bled them.

 

[Guest]

I would have thought buying a new caliper would have been much easier than all that, I didnt know people still rebuilt calipers..

 

[viprez586]

Yeah, i just graduated and im waiting to start at a Lexus dealership, so im fresh out of cash, don't really have the $ to buy new calipers, especially since i want to go dual piston i definitely don't have the cash. Once i get cash flow, that'll be a whole new project.

 

[Rx3]

I would have just taken that old caliper to autozone/napa/advanced auto and gotten a remanufactured one. You would have paid $30-40 bucks at most, and saved yourself a ton of headache. Plus the remans have lifetime warranty. Anything goes wrong, (i.e. they rust up) take it back, get a new one

 

[viprez586]

They run about $70-90.