Cpt. Spock

I've been mega busy the past couple of weeks, and going out of town this coming weekend as well. Its supposed to be in the 70s here tomorrow, maybe after work i will get out there and check the "pad nubs" and piston positioning on the caliper.

I have stoptech stainless lines, theyre about 4-5 months old at this point. I did not see anything out of the ordinary going on with the brake lines. Good luck with your son's s2000!

Cpt. Spock

UPDATE: Took advantage of the 70 degree weather yesterday and worked on the car. Checked the piston alignment...definitely not even close. I tried a 3/8s by itself but it wouldnt turn, so I went to the auto parts store and got the proper tool for the job. With a second hand, a pipe wrench to hold the caliper steady, a "breaker bar" extension, and some elbow grease we got them turned and aligned. I wasnt able to take it for a test drive last night after i was done, and of course its going to be rainy and crappy for the next 6 days, but I think i found my issue. I did notice i was able to spin the wheels freely and didnt seem like the e brake was on like before. The next nice day, i plan on taking it out for a spin and testing to confirm, but just wanted to share my findings and the results so far.

Cpt. Spock

UPDATE 5/24: So im not exactly sure what is going on now...to pick up where i last updated, the car DID feel great after fixing the piston alignment on the caliper. Now that the weather has warmed up and can drive the car more frequently, it seems that im having similar symptoms again. Let me start off...this is INTERMITTENT, not constant. For instance, this morning, it seemed that the rear brakes were dragging. I came to a stoplight and tried to let the car coast, and felt resistance as it stopped like i had the brake on, without me applying brake pressure myself. So i took the next turn, got on it a little bit and applied aggressive brake pressure and it seemed to make it WORSE. You could hear the rear brakes dragging when you came to a stop now, like your e-brake is not super tight, that kind of dragging. I pulled into the nearest parking lot, got out, you can smell brakes and the rear wheels are really hot. I let the car sit for 15-20 minutes WITHOUT the e-brake on (ive been doing this ever since i aligned the caliper piston), then got back in. The brake dragging subsided to almost non existent (barely dragging). I parked at work and let it sit for an hour or two, I just went to lunch and its perfectly fine again. HELP! IM ABOUT TO PULL MY HAIR OUT!

To recap the things i have changed/bought new:
-Brake lines (stoptech)
-Brake fluid at the time of brake line swap (motul rbf600)
-Slide pins/boots/grease
-Aligned caliper piston
-Adjusted e-brake to be on the looser side of OEM spec (it was on the tighter side)

The only two things i havent changed are the Pads and Calipers, which im considering doing this weekend unless someone else has experienced this that has other insight?...ANY help is GREATLY appreciated at this point...

//steve\\

Doubtful it's the pads. Calipers sound plausible. You made it seem like one of the pistons was hard to turn in. They shouldn't be hard to turn at all. If so, there is likely some corrosion on the piston and you'll want to full rebuild them or just replace them. I had a rear caliper on my 06 seize up on me and when I had a chance to check I couldn't get the piston to spin back in at all or it had wayyy too much resistance.

Cpt. Spock

Yes, it was a PITA to get the pistons back in...both sides. After i "broke them loose", they seemed to spin better. Not great, but better...im really leaning towards calipers at this point, but willing to give other input a shot as well. Thanks for the reply.

noodels

Did you grind the nipples of the new pads ?
as they need to slot into the pistons if not.
this would cause piston angle & bind problems <did on mine when fitted in haste>

Cpt. Spock

Thank you for the reply. I did that on the fronts as i have spoon calipers, i just aligned the piston on the rear. I did NOT align the piston initially, and ran into your described problems, but the calipers were still dragging after aligning the piston...I ended up buying new rear calipers and pads this past weekend and so far so good. I need to drive it more to definitively write off the issue.

pfoxgrover

I just replaced by rear lines, pads, and rotors and now I have a problem similar to what is described above. Brakes worked fine before I replaced them.
I did align the notches so that they would line up with the pips on the brake pads. It was pretty hard to rotate the caliper piston. I had to use pretty good force to move them back.
I am pretty bummed as I took several days to get the fronts and rears all redone and even painted the calipers. Now my time off from work is up and car is not functional. I checked the discs for temperature after a short test drive, and they are all pretty close to the same after a test drive. Noise seems to come from the rear. I can see some uneven break-in on one of the rear rotators like shinny streaks.
Not sure when I will have time to pull them apart. Any ideas other than what was covered above?

pfoxgrover

Here is a picture of the right rear. new pads and rotors. Only driven about a mile

B serious

If it required a lot of force to move the pistons, there's a chance they're seized

You twisted them, not pushed, right? And you twisted them all the way back until they stopped?