Seized Caliper Fix

[coastline taxis]

Going to post a guide on how we unsieze a caliper. tried it on a few of them now and it seems to work out ok. will try and get it posted for the weekend

[coastline taxis]

firstly due to the fact the people will sue you for every penny you have im advising people not to do this in fact im telling you to buy a new caliper. But if you want to have a go at unsiezing yours then il tell you how we do ours.

 

Often thought that its impossible for the inside of a caliper to sieze as brake fluid is a lubricant so it has to be a external componet that seizes. weve got a pile of about 15 calipers that have come of a car coz there seized (keeping them to way in for beer tokens). so we grabbed 2 of them and decided to have a look

The main cause of them seizing is the handrake lever and very simple to put right

1 take a photo of thr spring and lever in situ

2 remove the spring very easy to do and very little tension

3 wire brush the lever very hard and thorough

4 remove the torx screw holding the lever to the caliper

5 Weve had to hammer and pry the handbrake lever off and it does come of

6 with handbrake lever removed thoroughly wire brush the caliper were the lever sits and also the reverse side of the lever

7 wire brush or sand the whole lot again then brush copper slip onto it

8 reattacch the lever and spring and cover in more copper slip (use your photo if your not sure were the lever goes)

We got 7 of them working again

 

seized piston

 

1 remove the brake pads and swing the caliper away from the disc

2 pump the brake peddle on some of them we had to hit the piston with a hammer to help it

3 it will come out just keep pumping and hitting

4 once its popped out remove the rubber sealing band on the piston . youl see how clean it is inside the caliper

5 emery cloth the piston and replace the sealing rubber after coating it in vaseline

6 remove the dust cover if its still there if its not then dont worry

7 if you look into the caliper youl see a threaded bar just screw the piston onto this) check to see if its left or right thread)

8 if youve got the dust cover put it back on if not then copper slip were the piston meats the caliper

This sorted another 5 calipers out

the other 3 we had to do both of the above to get working. we have since put all these caliper back onto cars free of charge and they have worked and passed mot,s and taxi tests. we now clean the whole caliper and spray with wheel silver and they look and work ok.

Remember i advise against this as i dont want to be sued

[Dunkaz]

My first post to the owners club. I'll fill in some blanks as I get the chance.

For now, I need a bit of advice about this rather ageing post.

I have a 2002 C5 2.2 HDi Exclusive that I bought just over a week ago, the front discs and pads are very close to their limit so I am right now in the midst of their replacement.

When I started on the left side, first thing I spotted was the handbrake lever was stuck at the caliper. With everything still as for normal use I tried moving the operating lever back and forward. I have movement but not as free as it should be. The post from coastline was great in convincing me to try his technique to free the lever but with the caliper still in situ.

First off ... take photo as instructed. I duly inspected the photograph to find that the return spring has gone awol! It is still present on the other side.

I can't find the spring listed on a parts list that I have and scrapyards are rare (I'm in Portugal!).

Suggestions please.

[Dunkaz]

My request for advice about a replacement handbrake spring can safely be ignored.

As I hoped, working the lever by hand with copious penetrating fluid got the lever working very freely again. After that I continued to change the discs and pads, except that I found that both pistons had suffered abuse, probably while a chain of 'quick' repair shops here had butchered the pistons in their attempt to retract them. Obvious marks (deep) from the use of a drift of some sort to rotate them, sadly indicating that they had been attacked in both directions.

At that point I decided to leave everything in place until new calipers arrive.

[coastline taxis]

glad you got sorted one way or the other

[citroenC579]

Hi, j have the same problem with my brakes, handbrake lever stuck. Very annoying as cant use when I park up, just leaving in gear. I just seen this suggestion after I put a question up, but I will defo be trying this on weekend. Let you know how I get on. Thanks