I have tried to replace the brakes on my 96 Max and have ran into issues this time. I have over 260K miles on the car, and have done this before but for some reason I can't get the piston to "twist back to its home". The pads on the car are basically gone, and this weekend when I raised the car up and took off the bracket to get to the pads and the piston, the piston was so far out that I could literally jiggle it. I have the piston-socket tool (dont know the literal name) to help push the piston back, and started screwing it back in slowly. It was difficult but about 20-30 minutes later it became impossible to move it. I was about 1/4 inch from where I needed the piston to be compressed to, and it would not budge. I tried for 2 hours to get it to move, and it would not budge. Any ideas? Yes the same issue on both sides. 1996 Maxima GXE rear brakes.

 

Frozen pistons. Most likely you will need to buy new calipers for both sides. Same thing happened to my old I30. You can take the old ones to AutoZone I believe it was, and they have a core charge for it, so you're actually spending less than they actually are.

 

So even though the pistons do go in about 70% of the way, but not all the way you are saying the pistons are frozen? Why wouldn't they not move at all?

 

Yeh not a big thing, very common. Frozen pistons should be replaced in pairs, so get both sides. Just disconnect the line, re-attach it to the new caliper, put on pads, and then bleed all brakes. That last part is very important, believe me i just did this job a week ago. You wont have brakes if you dont bleed. Should take about 2 1/2 hours start to finish if your slow.

BTW: Look for the calipers on ebay. I saved about $75 over what autozone wanted, plus i keep my calipers. Now i can rebuild them in my spare time and sell em on ebay.

 

In all my time of replacing brakes I don't recall ever bleeding them. I might do it and not know what it is called, but can you give me the idiot definition of bleeding the brakes.

 

It means getting all the air out of the lines. Air is very bad in a brake system where things are under pressure. Heres the low down, on each caliper there is a little nipple with a rubber cap on it. Start at the passenger rear, then driver rear, then passenger front, then driver front, and you have someone pump up the brake pedal and put pressure on it. Then you open the valve(with a water bottle over the nipple), with an open end wrench, only open a little, keep it open for one to two seconds then close. Once closed the person in the car can let off the brakes, and pump up again. Repeat about 4-5 times per caliper, just to be safe. Make sure the whole while never to let master cylinder level to drop below min line, keep adding fluid, you'll need about half a container to be safe. Hope i made it sound easy. Main idea is, dont let the guy in the car let there fut up till the valve is closed, this would draw in more air.

 

Thanks. Sounds basic when stated like that. Would be a good FAQ