owned by brakes

[Thomas91169]

so i got royally owned today by my rear brakes. im driving down the road, and im next to a wall, so i can hear the car echoing off it, and i can hear a squealing sound, that was pretty apparent when the brakes werent applied, but when they were there was a slight grinding sound, again, only hearable when its echoing off a wall. i say to myself, "eh, got nothing planned tonight, maybe ill slap some new pads on there".

go to vatozone, picked up some new shoes, 35 bucks. come home, take the old ones out, which were metal to metal, the rivet that holds the upper clip in the shoe in had gouged a nice lip into the outer 1/2 inch of the rotor, not affected by the braking surfaces, but those suckers had nothing left to them. slap the new ones in, yada yada. grab C-clamp to press piston back in, and it wasnt big enough(had nothing to grab onto). so borrow neighbors, it was too small by 1/2 inch. so i realize instead of doing something ghetto, and having to do it over and over again whenever i need to do brakes, i went to home depot and got a 6" C-Clamp. more than enough. get home, and start clamping down, i get halfway and i just cannot get that summabitch piston down anymore. and i still need another 1/3" to get it around the pads and mounted. great. i call in the big guns(daddy) and even he couldnt do it.

at this point, my main thoughts were realized, frozen caliper. mustve been from one of my massive burnouts last week, too much heat killed it, and thus why it squeaked when brakes werent even being applied.

so i prop up the other side, get it all torn down, and same thing, frozen. great. call up vatozone again, get some pricing on new calipers, 50 bucks(42$ core charge). so i take off the old calipers, and bring them down, get the new calipers, and grabbed new rotors for each side, and some brake fluid. theres 188 bucks.

get home, get new calipers on, they slide right in, even with the new shoes and rotors. put the e-brake cables on, and attach the brake lines. one of them fell to the ground and spewed its contents across the garage floor while i was gone(the other was propped up on the frame).

i make my 1-man bleeder contraption, which consists of a 5' section of vacuum hose, a waterbottle(dry of any water), and the cap to the waterbottle perfectly drilled for the vac. hose. fill the bottle halfway with brake fluid, and stick the hose and cap on, and attach the hose to the bleeder. then open the bleeder, and hit the brakes. air is pushed out, but when brakes are disengaged, only fluid is sucked back in. or thats the idea.

shitloads of air came out, but brakes are still spongy. i fear i have air all the way to the abs module, and from what ive heard, ford has to deal with that. if thats the case, paint has to wait another week, and ill be severly pissed.

all in all, its taken me 7 hours and 230 bucks to fail miserably at a half hour job. ive added 2 dents the exact same spacing of my right knuckles on the rear fender(the fuck do i care, its circled with white crayon, and the paint shop can take care of it). you know, ive done turbo swaps in 4 hours, custom intercooler setups, full fuel systems, and never have i had this much trouble with something so simple, and never have i ever been so angry at something, usually im the one saying "dude calm down, its just a car". bad day indeed.

[lowflyn]

Hahahaha, one of my friends was complaining about the rear brakes on his cobra tonight...said he fought with them for a few hours before finally finishing them. From what I hear, I'd rather deal with drums than the rear rotors on my stang.

[Dom]

Wow that sucks. Maybe your car wants to stay black?

[Bane-]

once you go black....

nm

makes me glad I have drum brakes haha so easy.

[bbunt302]

Actually... I have a friend with an 01 V6 and changing the rear pads on his (I'm sure yours is probably the same) requires a special tool. The rear calipers probably weren't actually "frozen". To compress the pistons, you have to both press in on them and turn the piston (clockwise I believe) at the same time. There are two little "tabs" that the tool uses to twist the piston. It sort of "screws in."

I know this sounds riduculous and crazy. It is. But it is Ford we're talking about here.

[WhiteStang99]

Seems like I remember have to turn the calipers too when I was doing my rear pads last time...

[Zim]

Quote: Originally Posted by bbunt302 Actually... I have a friend with an 01 V6 and changing the rear pads on his (I'm sure yours is probably the same) requires a special tool. The rear calipers probably weren't actually "frozen". To compress the pistons, you have to both press in on them and turn the piston (clockwise I believe) at the same time. There are two little "tabs" that the tool uses to twist the piston. It sort of "screws in." I know this sounds riduculous and crazy. It is. But it is Ford we're talking about here.

yup, you have to twist while pushing them in... weird I know

[Thomas91169]

ugh fucking horseshit. oh well. theyre nice and shiny.

any ideas why bleeding them isnt working? should i try the 2 person method of bleeding(hit brakes, open valve till it squirts, then close valve)?

[bbunt302]

Quote: Originally Posted by EclipseGSTdude any ideas why bleeding them isnt working? should i try the 2 person method of bleeding(hit brakes, open valve till it squirts, then close valve)?

Yeah, that's what I'd do. Start with the brake furthest away from the master cylinder (i.e. passenger rear) and work your way up. It may take a while before you get it all out. Also, when your done before you start to take off anywhere, make sure the brake is still nice and firm after you turn the key over and the power brakes kick in.

[STEVE]

Yeah your calipers were not frozen, due to the parkind brake the rear pistons have to be turned while they are compressed.
Just buy a vaccum bleeder which you pump to get all the air out of your lines, start with the right rear caliper then left rear, then right front and lastly left front.

[Thomas91169]

k all is well now. i bled them at the master cylinder itself. first pump shitloads of air came out(since i was using the tube-bottle method) and my buddy who was doing the pumping was like "holy shit we have brakes". did that a few more times till no more was being taken from the resevoir. brakes work like a charm now.

ill be making paint deadline tomorrow afterall.

[whipster24]

I've used a needle nose pliers to compress the piston before, not fun, I'll have to buy the tool in the future.

[Fishers Stang]

yeah u need a tool, i didnt want to mess with mine this past summer so I had my tire shop do it.