Alright trying to do my own brakes for the first time and hitting some areas of trouble. I read through the faq's and my haynes manual and pretty much understand that the rear caliper pistons (pardon bad terminology) need to be rotated and pushed in. I tried at first using pliers with no effect and eventually went to autozone and rented the tool they mention in the haynes manual that rotates and pushes in with a lot of force. On my left rear one the only thing it has done is make me sore with no movement of the piston. Meanwhile on the right rear caliper before when I first jacked the car up I noticed there was a lot of friction in trying to rotate the wheel more then I think is reasonable. I was able to move the piston in on the right rear but with more force then I thought would be needed. Albeit I live in the rust belt I dont think it should be this hard.


I have taken the cap off the brake fluid (not sure if that helps). But I am thinking that either one or both rear calipers are just frozen or something. The car does have 122 thousand miles and I am guessing that these are the origional calipers. Sorry for long post but better to be descriptive I guess.

 

"HOW TO" sticky thread at the top of this forum...

 

I would be willing to bet they are seized. You can buy new ones at AutoZone for a halfway reasonable price if I recall correctly. They don't necessarily turn in super easy or anything, but if you have to d@mn near injure yourself getting them in, they are near the end of their life.

 

Thanks for the help but I have already read those multiple times about how to do the rear brakes which is why I said I read the FAQ's. The how to shows using a needle nose pliers to do it and there is no way that even worked. Even with the proper tool it isn't budging even when I put almost all of my weight into turning the little press. The calipers and the piston are very rusty. Just trying to figure out if I need new calipers or where to go from here. Thanks though.



Thanks Maximum that is what I was fearing

 

Looks like your caliper piston is seized. When I turned mine in, it took just a little force, I could turn it it with just a couple of fingers.

 

i dunno, mine were *really* hard to turn. i actually broke one of the little autozone tools doing. had to reassemble the car, and when i tried it again, they weren't as tight. i finished the job with needle nose pliars. maybe try reassembling, pumping the pedal, and starting over.

 

believe it or not they might NOT be seized. I had the same problem. I have a 95 and didn't change the rear pads until about 200k. IT was silly hard. My dad had to hold the damn assembly steady while I putl all of my phat as# 225 pounds of weight into turning the darn thing. It was really hard. It was so hard that I thought the things must be seized, but it did turn and they work find now...don't buy new calipers unless you have to.