Well I'm not sure for how long but today I realized that one of my rear brake calipers is seized. Lots of grinding noise from the rear end and the pads are down to almost nothing on 1 side and look great on the other. Going to take everything apart tomorrow and was wondering if anyone has had any luck freeing one up that has seized or if I should just order a new caliper when I order the new pads. I checked the garage and found an exploded picture of the caliper but nothing specific about rebuilding it.
thanks

 

This very same situation happened to me last Summer. My brother told me to head over to my local Auto zone to pick up some brake caliper bolt/guide pins but I ended up just picking up a brand new Duralast rear brake caliper. It came with all the new bolts and whatnot. It's $45.00 dollars if you give them your old one btw. After I bolted the new one up along with some new pads, and bled the brake line, everything was as good as new. I hope this helps you out OP.

 

And when you change the brake pads, make sure you change both sides . Even if the other side is still good.

 

will definitely be replacing pads on both sides. Just getting home from work late so didn't really know how much a new caliper would be. If i can find one for that price, no problem. I guess I just assumed it would be more and thought maybe it would be a quick fix for mine.
thanks

 

It should be a piece of cake . I changed all four of my rotors to slotted rotors and it was a fun experience. LMK how it goes.

 

cheapest caliper i can find is $90. oh well. going to pick it up and at least have it if mine is toast. if i can free mine up i'll just return it. i did the front pads a couple weeks ago and that was quite easy. Quick question, do the pistons push straight back in on the rear caliper or do they need to spin when going back in?
thanks

 

Wow! $90. Did you check your local auto zone? Yes, the pistons pushes straight back. Use a C clamp if you have one .

 

However if your new brake caliper doesn't solve the problem, it may be the brake lines. I switched to Stainless Steel brake lines since.

 

i am in canada so no autozone around here. that was the cheapest price i could find. i'm going to get some new brake fluid and flush out the old at the same time as i bought the car used and not sure if it still has the original fluid or not. i read a couple tricks on here to check to see if its the caliper seized or the brake line loosing pressure so lots of things to check this afternoon once i get the wheels off.
thanks again

 

Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn't know you were in Canada. Well glad I could be able to help you.

 

Well, got her all fixed up. Upon tearing the brakes apart, the passenger side piston was fully extended and there was NO material left on the pads. It was right down to the metal backing plates so I assume that it was stuck for a while but I never noticed any excess dust, weird noises or any different feel in the brakes. I hope the rotor didn't get warped. It looked ok and initial feel was that all is good. The drivers side pad basically had no wear when comparing the new and old pads. Re-assembly was straight forward so hopefully all is good now. When I was bleeding the new caliper I decided to try to bleed all of the old fluid from all of the lines. I captured the fluid at each wheel and ended up with about 400ml, about 100 from each corner. Hopefully that was enough to get almost all of the old fluid out. I had to fill the master cylinder after each wheel.
Anyway know the capacity of the master cylinder? 400ml enough to flush the system?
thanks again