One of mine did this, gave me the excuse to remove all the calipers, have them cleaned up and caliper rebuild kits fitted and while they were off i thought what the hell and fitted braided hoses too. Get the rebuild kits from Hardtop guy 1/4 the price of UK stealers.

 

Just to clarify, it actually should be Emery paper, if you can get it. You really want to take nothing off!

Do not put Copper Ease on the backs of the pistons - it is mineral-based & will react badly with the rubber seals and the brake fluid. Outside it's fine. There is a special brake paste available for internal lubrication

 

[QUOTE=Nick Graves,Nov 22 2005, 09:52 AM]Just to clarify, it actually should be Emery paper, if you can get it. You really want to take nothing off!

Do not put Copper Ease on the backs of the pistons - it is mineral-based & will react badly with the rubber seals and the brake fluid. Outside it's fine. There is a special brake paste available for internal lubrication

 

Well got the car back this evening. Said the calipers had seized (obviously). He mentioned that whoever changed the calipers previously hadn't done it quite right and water managed to get inside....something to do with the rubber ?? Therefore causing it to seize the way it did.

Had the pads changed which he said were very low but he said the calipers are gonna need changing asap !!!!!!! I said i'll have to wait as i'm broke !

 

A work mate had a similar problem with his S's brakes. There were two problems / potential problems. This is what we did to sort it.

Took the wheel off
No seriously, undid the bolts that hold the caliper on gently pushed out the piston by applying a gentle pressure to the brake, used brake cleaner to clean the now exposed caliper and then with some wet & dry (I think) gently cleaned them up. Applied a liberal coating of copper grease with a paint brush and pushed the caliper back in with a caliper tool.

Then undid the other bolts that hold the front part of the caliper on. These go through a rubber gommit type thing (technical I am not), cleaned it up and copper greased it. I think we then ensured the rubber gommit was a tight fit to ensure dirt/water was not ingressing and either extended as far as it will go or squahed it as tight as it would go. Which ever way we did it it meant that once it was all connected back up the front part of the caliper was as far away from the disk as possible as we think it was catching/ rubbing on the front of the disk. This worked a treat did all 4 and the car is now 5 yrs old. We did it about a year ago. He has had no problems since. My old car did not need the above doing to it as (which is now owned by PeteL and was an my00) this looked like it had already been done. I would be interested to hear from PeteL if he has had any problems.

 

Trust me, get the caliper off and take the piston out, its the piston seal ring that will be split and this will have let the piston get rust on it. Get some emery paper or such like and smooth down the effected area, while your at it give the whole caliper a good clean inside and out, then get a caliper rebuild kit, lube and fit everything back up and jobs a good un.

 

I'll give that a go ade. Are the calipers relatively easy to strip down ?

 

Yes, IIRC 2 bolts hold them on and one for the brake hose (use a hose clamp or mole grips to keep the fluid in) they are easy to take apart (you can hammer out the piston carefully with a suitable tool) the only hard part is getting the greased up piston rubber seal back in. 2 sets of hands make it much easier. Feel free to pm for any more advice if you get stuck.

 

Cheers mate. I've sourced a rebuild kit and a mate of mine dads garage to do it in