My right front brake caliper has a problem. In a perfect world, when the brakes are applied, the caliper squeezes the pads on both sides of the rotor, making the wheel harder to rotate and subsequently, if the brake petal is applied long enough with enough pressure, the wheels will stop turning, and the car will come to a stop. That is a good thing.
There is a shaft near the top if the part of the caliper that is fastened to the stationary section of the 2-part caliper, which in a perfect world will allow the sliding back and forth function when the brakes are applied.
The threaded part of this top shaft screws into the stationary part of the caliper. The shaft on my caliper has seized into the other part and does not allow the sliding back and forth.
Consequently, when the brakes are applied, the two pistons that would cause the squeezing of the pair of brake pads, simply push the inside pad when the brakes are applied.
Naturally, this will wear the inside pad and the outside pad would remain in it’s excellent condition until the Lord returns!
In the processing of inspection yesterday, I discovered that all the braking material that remained on the inside pad could have been mistaken for a thin coat of black paint. The outside pad was fantastic. This was a pretty timely discovery because there was no damage to the rotor! ( I do pray a lot)
The bolt that is in the power section that provides the same sliding function that the top shaft does was removed and when I swing the movable part of the caliper up to inspect the pads, there was no swinging. Actually, prying up that part that should easily swing up was extremely difficult. When I got it up, there was a lot of play, like there was a worn-out shaft or bearings for the shaft.
Not so… the shaft had began to unscrew from the stationary half of the caliper and the threads that screw in gave me the “wobbly” motion. .
This shaft is made to be tightened with a metric wrench, 17mm, and there is no way I can turn it. I can put enough pressure on it to cause the open-end wrench to expand and slip and this shaft will not turn in the seized bushings. There is no way to get any PB blaster or anything else to penetrate because it can’t get in where it would have to be to loosen it up!
No way to push the moving part away from the stationary part to get the shaft out.. It will not budge.
Although the caliper “half” that swings up is unscrewing the shaft out, it can only unscrew the shaft half a turn because of the construction of the stationary “half”, so removing the complete caliper from the car and unscrewing the thing with my big old vice is not an option.
This is an IQ test! Who knows how can I do this job without paying the big bucks for a whole new caliper?
Thanks for any help...
Keith
