Over the weekend , I finally assembled the front brake calipers.
This is what happened in the shed....
The most difficult job was deciding in what order to reassemble the parts, trial and error was the order of the day, the workshop manual giving no help.
It can only be done if the two parts of the caliper body are separated, despite what the W/M says.
First, the piston rubber seal is inserted into the bore of the caliper, being lubed with brake fluid and a small paint brush.
Then the outer dust seal is fitted to the groove in the top of the bore, then the new piston is placed into the outer seal , being well lubed again with brake fluid.
It was then placed into the vice with a timber spacer on the piston and vice jaw, and gently tightened up, pushing the piston into the bore , through the rubber outer seal.
This operation can only be done with a vice , the inner bore seal and piston are an incredibly tight tolerance fit , and cannot be pushed by hands, no-matter how big or strong they are!
The next thing that happened was almost
magical to watch....
As the piston was pushed into the bore, the top outer dust seal lip, just slid up and
into the top grove on the piston, with no input from me...wonderful.
I carefully checked that the seal was indeed located in the piston groove and it was job done,
The other side of the caliper with the single large piston was next, and this job only took less than 10 mins, the first caliper with 2 pistons , a steep learning curve and patience, took over one hour!
Bolted the two halves together with new O ring washers, torqued big bolt to 50 lbs and smaller on to 30, fitted a new pad assembly kit of 2 new bars and spring clips that hold the pads in, making sure that
the shims on the rear of the pads were located in the direction of disc rotation, and the caliper assembly was done.
Question: after bleeding the front calipers and a test drive the car still pulls to the left a bit, it did the same thing before the caliper refit!
Do you
think that it needs bleeding more, being that he line from the master is
longer to the left hand side than the right?
end of rant,
its 45 deg C outside , so I'm inside for the day, aircon on, keeping cool.....
Peter