Which direction do I turn the rear caliper piston with the cube brake tool to push the piston back in?

Clockwise or counter clockwise? And why did they do it like that, it sucks.

 

Clockwise, should push the piston in.

you cant see the piston moving back or forth?

 

Nope, but it's turning

 

Do clockwise, then try to fit the caliper back on, if it wont fit, you should see how much more distance you need to go to get it back on.

(if that makes sense)

 

Yeah that makes sense, and I've done this before, but I couldn't remember which direction, and turning slowly with a ratchet seems to go no where.

I used an air rachet and no problem, clockwise is right and the time it takes with the speed of the air tools, it would take an hour by hand.

And it took me a few tries to remember to line up the groove in the piston with the notch on the pads.

 

It only took me about 5 minutes with a pair of needle nose pliers on the rears. And it has to be that way because of the parking brake mechanism...the 6th gen with the drum-in-disc parking brake (I hate that setup) doesn't need to be rotated, just pushed straight in like the fronts.

 

Per the FSM: When installing new pads, push piston into cylinder body by gently turning the piston clockwise.

Again, push the piston in while turning clockwise.

 

How do you turn the piston with an air ratchet? Did you have a special caliper turning tool?

Just replaced one of my rear calipers the other day. It was hard as hell to turn with a needle nose pliers--several times I lost contact and almost ripped the boot. I would love to do it another way next time.

 

Yeah $10 bucks it's cube shaped and has 6 different sides for different cars and each side can connect to a rachet.



I just put the air rachet on there and pushed.

 

Thanks for posting that! ...didn't know that kind of thing existed.

 

If you cannot turn the rear caliper by hand, then you have a caliper that is going to freeze in the next few weeks. You shouldn't need an air rachet to turn the piston back in, unless you are a Midas muffler tech

 

Its not that it was hard to turn, it just took forever turning it slowly by hand.

Faster is always better.

 

You should turn the piston clockwise it the piston tool. When I did my back brakes I did them with vise grips and it took a while.

 

If you turn the caliper tool with a air rachet, you could rip the rubber seal for the piston. Turn it by hand

 

I bet his problem is that he forgot to take the lid off the master cylinder, making it harder to turn. It wasnt difficult when I did it, you just had to turn slowly, otherwise the pliers WILL slip.