I have had a rear brake (left side) dragging for a couple of weeks. Two weeks ago I pulled the pads and reset the piston, lubed up the slides, put it back together and seemed to help a bit. So this weekend (after the famous “longest fuel filter change” in history) I repeated the above procedure. This time the piston was very hard to reseat (turned hard), so I only moved it back about one turn. Well it now is hanging up even worse. Has anyone had any experience with this type of symptom and if so, what was your cure. Has anyone rebuilt one of the rear calipers, any words of wisdom would be appreciated. Anyone have any comments about going with a new replacement or a rebuild. Again, any help/comments/suggestion are most welcome.

Regards.

 

I had that experience once (not on a Nissan) and it turned out that the piston had a number of small rust spots on it. I rebuilt the caliper with new pistons.

 

He has a 97 Volvo 850 though. The problem he noticed was the car was pulling a little to the left and it felt like there was a constant drag. He also noticed that the whole wheel was blazing hot. He re-lubricated part of the caliper and it helped but it did not completly fix the problem so he purchased a rebuilt one{caliper} for like $100. Your best bet is to just buy a another caliper since there not too expe$ive. Good Luck!

 

I had something similar happen and the emergency brake cable was sticking and causing the left rear brake to engage. I had that replaced and never had the problem again.

 

A sticking cable would explain the dragging brake but not the difficulty in reseating the piston. This problem is inside the caliper.

 

Daniel B. Martin, cltsig, emax95, thanks for the input. Just as an FYI, I have spoken with the good folks at Infiniti of Scottsdale who mentioned there was a factory campaign (note: not a recall) regarding sticky e-brakes which involved the cables and return springs. Their note of caution was it would most likely effect both sides, not just one side. So I do have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow at the dealer to see if they can figure it out. I will keep you updated. Now I am curious if anyone has had any experience replacing the e-brake cables.

Again, thanks for your thoughts and taking the time to reply, it is most helpful to get the thoughts of others when you run into these problems.

Regards and thanks again.

 

In my experience it was causing the drivers rear rotor to stick to the point that when I felt it pulling one night, I pulled over to see a nice red, glowing rotor. It was the brake cable (fixed under warranty) and only impacted one side of the car. BTW, it was a '96 SE Auto (which I sold and now own a much more loved '97 SE 5-speed).

Cheers,
Chris

 

OK guys, here is the scoop. The left rear caliper is shot, seems the piston will not retract and the mechanic says it must have to do with the internal parking brake take up system, just what we thought. Now as to the campaign regarding cables and return springs, seems they had a problem with some weak springs that would not release the parking brake fully. It would exhibit a groaning sound when you would back up the first thing. The fix was a helper spring they would add to the caliper to assist the parking brake mechanism to retract. Long story short, I have purchased a rebuilt ($100) and will be installing it this weekend. Now before I install the rebuilt, I will take the old one apart to see if I can spot the malfunction. If I find anything of interest, I’ll let you guys know. Hey, you never know when someone else may run across the same problem.

Regards

 

Your right...someone else has this problem. My '97 Max SE with 65K miles. Did you find anything? My parking brake portion seems to stick sometimes. I thought the return spring was whimmpy also. My cables aren't binding either.

 

how do you know there is a recall on the e-brake. Is it posted on some Nissan website, or do you have to call the dealer. And I was wondering if the recall was for some specific vin #..
thanks in advance