Hello, so there has been a few threads recently of stuck brake calipers so I decided to rebuild a rear caliper and do a write up on what you will find.
Step 1: use the brake cube to rotate the brake piston out. the groves on the piston will match one of the faces of the brake cube. just rotate it all the way out. it unscrews. BE SURE NOT TO DAMAGE THE BOOT! there is a clip holding the outside dust boot into the caliper.
Pic of the clip in the boot:
set the piston aside with the dust boot.
GENTLY USE A NON MARING TOOL TO REMOVE THE SQUARE CUT SEAL!!!! DO NOT USE A SCREWDRIVER LIKE THIS PICTURE!! I didnt capture a picture of the seal so i got one off the internet.
here is the piston completely dissasembed. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE THE PISTON APPART ANY FARTHER. I did this just for demostration.
Now you will have to deal with the c-clip. your going to have to take the clip out.
now this picture below shows the assembly your trying to take out.
The assembly is deep inside the the caliper as you can see in this picture its pretty deep. this is an after picture after removing the clip and top hat,spring and post as seen above.
you cna use the angled snap right plyers to take the snap ring out. put a rag over the opening to make sure it doenst go shooting off. once you take the snap ring out you will have those parts come out as well with a washer and a roller bearing.
Now you can take the nut off the back of the caliper. once you take the nut off you will want to take a marker and index the bracket to the stud. it will make reassemby easier. as you can see in the next picture the stud has groves on it, the bracket that the e-brake cable pulls on also is splined. once you mark the spline and the bracket so that it goes back on the same splines grab your hammer and give the stud a smack. the following is what comes out.
make sure you also get the o ring on the stud too, it may still be in the caliper.
so now you have the whole caliper appart. this is what i found. the hole that the stud goes though gets crud in it and crrodes, it attacks the studs and the bore. as you can see here:
Clean up that bore hole and the stud, this is the cause of the parking brake freezing up. Once cleaned with sand paper or scotch bright pad wash everything down with brake cleaner. using silicome paste make sure lube up the shaft of the bolt as well as pack the boot behind the bracket that you indexed with silicone paste. Make sure that when you put the shaft with the other parts and the o rings back in the same order they came out.
once thats put back in the caliper you can line up the index mark you made with the bracket and put the nut back on and tighten it.
when you put he bracket back on after packing the shaft and the boot full of silicone paste, move the arm and listen and feel for a clicking. if you feel or hear a clicking the bracket wasnt square on the post. you want the the ball bearings to sit flat when put the bracket on.
sorry guys its kinda a feel thing.
once you have the bracket back on and feeling good, its time to put the roller bearing and washer back in. the roller bearing fits inside the divot.
pic of roller bearing and washer.
make sure to rub them down with brake fluid during assembly to keep them lubricated as you want to keep things a bit wet with brake fluid so there are no dry spots.
NOW THE FUN PART!!!!
so all of this now seems pretty strightforward and this is the fun part. you have to get the top hat aseembly that has spring tention back into the caliper. what i ended up doing was using part of the ball joint seperator as a forcing screw and a socket to push the top hat down past the level the snap right goes in. its hard to explain but the spring is strong enough you cant push down and work the snap ring plyers.
here are a few pictures of the setup:
you want to find a socket that lets the post above go into it so you can press on that top hat to get it down far enought.
A tip i found was compress the top hat farther then it needed to do and put the snap ring is and let it set in the grove when you start releasing the tention on the spring. it should snap into place and bam the hard part is done.
take your square cut seal and rub down with brake fluid and replace into grove. also lube the inside piston bore as well. also get brake fluid on the piston.
grab the dust boot and slide it back on and place the piston back into the caliper and screw it in. you will have to push down a bit to get it to bite into the screw post adn start going. take the piston down almost all the way and work the dust boot back into the grove and place the clip that was in it.
if you completed all these steps the parking lever should move with a bit of elbow grease and return.
While this is not really hard it can be itimidating. Always use a new caliper rebuild kit for the seals when breaking open a caliper.
also take note of the direction of the snap ring one side is taperd the other is flat.
also take note of the orentation of the roller bearing and side of the washer inside.
Great write up! Little tip to tell if your parking brake is sticking. Gently lift up on the parking brake lever if it moves at all then one side or the cables are stuck. I had my driver side get stuckon me over the summer. Thank god I had a pry bar on me to get it to go back down so I could continue my drive and not catch a wheel on fire.
I'm starting to encounter the sticky rear caliper and had the stuck one in my hand, trying to figure out how all that worked. They could've put one 3 cent chinese lip seal in there to circumvent the entire problem...somebody on the engineering team probably suggested it, but the bean counters left it out to make a few more bucks.
Now I gotta weigh doing all this, with the requisite system fill & bleed, or get a new one for $65 every 50-60k...still gotta bleed it I guess.
I'm starting to encounter the sticky rear caliper and had the stuck one in my hand, trying to figure out how all that worked. They could've put one 3 cent chinese lip seal in there to circumvent the entire problem...somebody on the engineering team probably suggested it, but the bean counters left it out to make a few more bucks.
Now I gotta weigh doing all this, with the requisite system fill & bleed, or get a new one for $65 every 50-60k...still gotta bleed it I guess.
You shouldnt have to completely bleed it... the fluid does not come out that fast when you uncouple the brake line from the caliper... just get a bucket or oil pan and let it drop for a few seconds till you put the new caliper on... then just use the bleeder valve to pump new brake fluid in! It took me like 1 hour to do both!
That was a very good pictorial. I have been able to squirt penetrate behind the rubber seal that is around the stud to free it up. Done while on the car.
that may work for a bit but remember all that crud that was in the bore, your just lubricating that crud. There is only a rubber seal on the inside keeping that stuff out of your brake caliper to begin with.
Just wanted to say thanks so much for this writeup! @Bullfrog Printed out your post and rebuilt both calipers this week.
Had to grind down the snap ring pliers that I bought from that link but they worked great.
Here's a link to the rebuild kit I used: More Information for CENTRIC 14363036
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Glad that the write up helped. Feel free to add any insights that you had or clarifications that maybe you found were confusing. Nice to see that someone followed some of my work. @Nighthawk_726@Exitus04
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