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Front brake job - any advice?

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glemon said:
:encouragement: What he said, gets to the point where you are beating your head against the wall, try a different approach to isolate the problem.
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True, I will often stop, get down on my hands and knees and beat my head against the floor for a while. Oh wait that's not what you meant is it? :devilgrin:
 
Maybe not but sometimes it does seem like the rational thing to do :beaten:
 
AN5Sprite said:
Picture required...
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Sorry it took me a while to get to this. Too busy playing with my carbs.

You can clearly see the area that is rubbing on the rotor in this pic, it is the silver area about 1/8" from the hub:

DSC_0015 by onyxsax, on Flickr

Just for grins, I loosened up the caliper mounting bolts (What can I say? The bicycle mechanic in me just had to try), and brake fluid began to come out of the bottom bolt hole. Is that supposed to happen? I had already started wiping up the fluid, so the mark on the ground is a bit bigger than what actually came out:

DSC_0018 by onyxsax, on Flickr

Here is a close up of the caliper. It looks like I may have a leak, although this may have been from loosing up the mounting bolts.

DSC_0021 by onyxsax, on Flickr

I have a few more pics, but I thought these were the most specific.
 
Mounting bolts are on the inside, the visible bolt heads are holding the 2 halves of the caliper together. If you broke the seal between the 2 halves you will probably need kits and new orings, not just tighten them up again.
Rut
 
Rut said:
Mounting bolts are on the inside, the visible bolt heads are holding the 2 halves of the caliper together. If you broke the seal between the 2 halves you will probably need kits and new orings, not just tighten them up again.
Rut
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D'oh! :apologetic:

It was continuing to leak this morning. Well, seeing that I'm probably going to have to remove the caliper, I do have yet another question: How do you keep the brake fluid from going all over the place when you disconnect the line?
 
SaxMan said:
I do have yet another question: How do you keep the brake fluid from going all over the place when you disconnect the line?
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Two things -- one, take off the M/C cap and put some plastic wrap under it, then put the cap back on. Without the vent able to replace the fluid with air in the master cylinder the vacuum created will keep most fluid in. Second, you can get a little clamp to put on the line.

I did the plastic wrap trick when I replaced the hoses on my MGB, very little fluid came out.
 
We've all done that. But before you break something trying to undo the bolts on the inside there is a flanged tab that is bent over and needs to be unbent before you try to remove the bolts. That unworn area is normal. The silver area is where the pads make contact with the rotor.
 
Mercifully, putting the bolts back in and tightening them down did stop the leaking.

Jim - I saw the flanged tabs. I figured I had already bitten off more than I could chew, so I left the flanges alone and put everything back together.
 
wait. You broke loose the bolts that hold the caliper halves together? I wouldn't trust that they'll stay tight unless I removed them, cleaned all the threads and reinstalled with high temperature loctite. Definitely keep an eye on them.
 
I dove into the left front brake this evening. The saran wrap trick worked to some extent...there was still a fair amount of fluid dumped, although my MC still had fluid in it. Cleaning the calipers up seems to have done the trick, as the rubbing has almost completely subsided. Of course, now the left wheel is spinning more freely than the right, so I guess I'm going to have to go back in and do the same thing on the right wheel. The rubbing on the right wheel wasn't as near as bad as the left one, so I may hit that a little later as I have a pair of Peter's shock absorbers that I haven't had the chance to put in yet.
 
Hopping back into the car, when I press the brake pedal, it goes straight to the floor the first time, and then stiffens up. I've read enough posts (and had this happen on my mountain bike hydraulic brakes) that this is usually indicative of air in the line and I need to bleed the brakes....just want to confirm. And, if I have to bleed them, I might was well fix up the right side calipers, too.
 
SaxMan said:
Hopping back into the car, when I press the brake pedal, it goes straight to the floor the first time, and then stiffens up. I've read enough posts (and had this happen on my mountain bike hydraulic brakes) that this is usually indicative of air in the line and I need to bleed the brakes....just want to confirm. And, if I have to bleed them, I might was well fix up the right side calipers, too.
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It could also mean your seal is bypassing fluid. If you keep your foot on the pedal once you build pressure, can you feel the pedal slowly drop/lose pressure? That's a sure sign.
 
Gerard said:
It could also mean your seal is bypassing fluid. If you keep your foot on the pedal once you build pressure, can you feel the pedal slowly drop/lose pressure? That's a sure sign.
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Pedal remains stiff once pressure is built up.
 
Could also mean you just need to seriously adjust the drum brakes.
 
Bayless said:
Could also mean you just need to seriously adjust the drum brakes.
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The brakes were fine before I starting messing around with the left front caliper.

Bicycle hydraulic brake systems have a neat way of hooking up syringes to either end of the system and using suction to pull the air out of the lines. I don't think they have something like that for cars?
 
You can use a Mityvac but did you accidentally split this caliper or was it the other one? Replace hoses first and foremost if not done already.
 
Jim_Gruber said:
You can use a Mityvac but did you accidentally split this caliper or was it the other one? Replace hoses first and foremost if not done already.
Click to expand...

This is the one I split, but it did go back together, wasn't leaking and seemed to be stopping decently. If this turns into a bigger deal...well at least I'm in mid-November, so having the car off the road for a while to sort this out won't be as heart rending as having it off the road in the summer.
 
You might get lucky and only have to bleed that brake, but if you still have issues with uneven or dragging brakes a rebuild is in the card's anyway.

Kurt
 
I lifted up the front end of the car for yuks tonight, spun the left wheel....and I'm right back where I started in terms of the rub, and now I have a sinking pedal to boot. So, my next question is: Is it more preferable to pound your head into the wall, or the concrete floor?

I think I may have to throw up the white flag on this one and take it to my mechanic. I don't feel comfortable trying to pull this off with my current level of mechanical skill. Brakes are one of the things that you can't get "90% there" and still have a satisfactory result.
 
My 2 cents - If I could rebuild mine - you can rebuild yours. It is not a difficult job, and, if it doesn't work, you won't have done anything terminal and the rebuild kits are much cheaper than a new unit. Part of the joy of owning these (like a Bike) is the ability, not just to say I did it myself, but to fix it on the road.

I went back over this thread and it seems like your struggles started with the rubbing of the caliper. So, assuming you don't know when last this was done, and, given that it is getting to be winter after anyways, it is probably worth doing front to back.

So, minimum, new calipers, caliper rebuild kit, hoses all around (including the single hose in the back) - and maybe new rotors

If everything else was working fine, you can make decisions

1. do I need new pads at the back? (and get the drums turned)

2. do I need to rebuild the MC at this time? (a little fussy but not hard)

3. do I need to clean the switch assembly?

In terms of the actual caliper rebuild, you will need the kit (Moss #071-514) as well as the seal 180-285)

Take one caliper apart at a time, clean, paint if you want and reassemble. It is better if you have a compressor to blow out the caliper
and you will need a torque wrench to reassemble but again, if I can do it you can. and we can walk you through.
 
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