HatchSpeeD

My driverside rear caliper is frozen. Not completely but enough to wear down my pad to nothing in a few days & started eating into the rotor (but only halfway, meaning not the entire length of rotor, yes all the way around but as of only the bottom part of the pad closest to the center/hub is wearing down). Phew...anyway I was hoping to knock this out tomorrow after work for I have a lot of driving to do.

A co-worker suggested to take off the caliper & take out the pads. Push the brake all the way down & keep brake pedal depressed ofcourse to not allow air in the line (i'll use my autolock in between my seat & brake pedal ). The piston will come all the way out along with the seal/s. He said try cleaning all the crap out of it if any & put it back in. If not that, than ofcourse time for a new caliper.

Just wanted to get you peoples opinions on that before I attempt it tomorrow. Has anyone tried this? I would rather just repair the caliper & just slap it back on for now until I have time to order & wait for new pads/discs to be shipped. If i'm forced to change rotors & pads I might as well upgrade them for I was going to down the line. Kinda was thrown a curve ball here because i'm spending all my money into my engine build & my brakes are perfect otherwise. One thing to note the same thing happened the previous own according the maintenance history except it was the other side but in the rear still. Looks they repaired that caliper instead of changing it. I wonder if they did what I described or used one of those rebuild kits. This is for a 94 Del Sol vtec.
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project_delta

If it's your caliper piston, then you need a new caliper. I wouldn't bother trying to disassemble it or anything, just replace it. You sure its not just your slider pins that are siezed? I've seen that happen a million times before, and it will cause uneven and premature pad wear. If those are siezed, do what you have to to get them out and clean them up as best you can, then use some copper based lubricant on them. The problem is people don't realize that it is a maintenance item to lube the brake parts, otherwise things like this happen.

HatchSpeeD

I'm sorry for my ignorance but am unsure of this slider pin & having a hard time visualizing it. I've worked on brakes a few times & changed calipers twice but i've done more engine swaps than brake work lol. Perhaps you can send me a link of a picture or an exploded view of the brake parts on a honda parts site. From the way it only wore out half of the rotor it would be awesome if you were right & I could just clean it up & reinstall everything. Then hopefully the top part of the pad thats unused i'm assuming will only make contact with the rotor thus slowly evening out. If that would work or the case I would be happy with that for now until I upgrade my brakes.
But the caliper is defintely sticking & is really loud on my way home from work. The bottom half of the pad is worn almost all the way down & has little shavings of pads sticking out at the end.

HatchSpeeD

Only pins I can picture are the two bolts that hold the caliper in place on the rotor & I don't see how they can be seized in anyway or cause what happened.

nocturnaldragon

PArt #40 in that pic

HatchSpeeD

Last night after work I took out the bolts thinking those were the pins but the pins are what the bolts screw into & the caliper slides on, correct? If so, ok how the heck do you take out the pins? Keep in mind, this is the rear caliper. Also, I couldn't take off the caliper after removing the 2 bolts. E-Brake was off, rota would not spin by hand. Tried sticking a screw driver between the pad & rota but all that was moving was the shims. Was going to attempt this today ASAP.

Any help would be appreciated.

Archidictus

You need a new caliper. Should be less than $100 at Advance Auto with the core. Be sure to bleed the system after you're done

HatchSpeeD

They don't sell pads for each brake do they? I'm only gonna do that side if I change it..


Modified by HatchSpeeD at 1:23 PM 7/9/2006

Archidictus

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by HatchSpeeD &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

They don't sell pads for each brake do they? I'm only gonna do that side if I change it..</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's $20 for the entire set of rear pads. Change both sides unless you're a dumbass who's looking to expletive up more of his braking system. Laziness is gay, dude.

HatchSpeeD

Not reading my first post is gay. Keep the comments to yourself if you want to be ignorant & not know the facts. I'll repeat myself again for ya buddy...

My other brakes are FINE. Pads are fine & better quality than the cheap *** **** I will buy just to tie me over. I was planning on upgrading my rotors/pads down the line after my engine build was complete & had a little extra cash. I'm not gonna change the other side too when nothing is wrong with them & replace them with an inferior pad. This caliper freezing was a curve ball & completely unexpected & worn out my perfectly good pad in 2 days. I also don't want to spend a lot on something thats just going to be upgraded & thrown out in a few months so thats why I asked, mmmk sweetheart? I'm not want to cheap out on parts in fact its killing me to buy an autozone/advance auto parts caliper. But whatever, I need to drive my car for now so it will be done.

Archidictus

Apparently you don't understand the physics of your brake setup, so I'll just let you diddle your little Civic **** in ignorance.

All I'm saying is "different coefficients of friction at different corners = non linear braking force."

You do what you want, clever kid

project_delta

Look again at the exploded view pic. I don't think you need a new caliper by the way. Anyways, as nocturnaldragon said, you need to remove part #40, the slider pins. All you gotta do to do this is take the small bolts out that screw into these slider pins. Then using a screwdriver or something, remove the capliper out of the way. This is when you should be able to just pull out the sliders, but in your case, I'm betting that they are siezed in there. Now, take some pliers, spray some penetrating fluid around the sliders, and start working those suckers loose. If they are siezed bad enough, you will have to buy new caliper mounting brackets with new slider pins (parts #40, #24 *each pin is different*, two #23, and the actual mounting bracket, but I can't see what number it is). Probably cheapest to get these from a wrecker. Make sure you use some silicone brake parts lubricant on the new parts, or the old ones assuming you get them apart.

On a different note, this is a maintenance item for disc brakes both front and rear. At least once a year you should remove these pins, clean and lubricate them. Otherwise, they sieze up and you end up with big problems.

Groove_D

Ok i have the same problem. And it's not the caliper pins. Those are clean and lubricated, front and rear. The problem is the driver's side piston, it keeps getting seized stuck. So i used the C clamp to push it in, put it back, pumped the brakes. Done this about 4 times in a row. After i drive a day, the piston is seized again.
What do you guys think it is, bad caliper or something in the lines. Uneven pressure etc.
Oh by the way i changed all 4 calipers about two years ago.

HatchSpeeD

Thanks Delta for the advice. I already went ahead & changed the caliper on sunday. At first I didn't understand or could picture the slides & so on in my head but when I had everything apart it was all clear as day & made sense. The slider pins were fine.
I tried that first but it ended up being the piston itself. Clearly seized & wasn't going to attempt a rebuild so I purchased a oem rebuilt one & called it a day.
I didn't say anything & just left the thread to die because it was like beating a dead horse talking to Archidictus. I mean, I appreciate the attempt for help & information but to come off in an ignorant way, assume the wrong thing, & not even understand my point to begin with is like whatever. Just because you think you know more than someone else doesn't mean your right ya know.
If you read my post to begin with, you would know this just to get my car running again. Why buy something when it will be thrown out in the near future & i'm not planning on entering in any indy 500's or autocross events anytime soon. Guess what, my car feels fine other than the little squeel I hear time to time because my outside surface of the rotor which is scarred up pretty good is digging into my new cheap advanced auto pads. But thats fine, because after my engine is in I'll be tossing all these rotors & pads anyway....as long as my fricken caliper isn't frozen & I can get to & from work everyday i'm good.
The fun part was having to bleed the whole damn car because the previous owner put & i'm gonna assume ate superblue brake fluid in & since I clearly wasn't going to find any at autozone & the caliper was already off I had to bleed the whole damn car. LOL

but hey, thats life...