My rear brake pads needed replacing, so I took the calipers off, and started looking at everything involved. Everything was going just great until I tried to compress the caliper back into the housing. They won't budge. Thinking that it was a problem with the caliper, even though both sides brakes worked perfectly last week, I took off the other side also, and it also wouldn't budge. Is there something wrong with my calipers, or is there something wrong with me?



BTW: 86 RX7, non-turbo, non-vented rear brakes.

And the car has lived in Virginia all it's life, so there has been snow and salt in it's history.

Hey my vert is originally from Virginia.. Anyways.. Maybe you can releive the presure in the brake lines if they are still hooked up, since you will need to bleed them again.. if not.. I dunno..

They're not still hooked up. I thought that the vise on the workbench might have a better time of it than the c-clamp under the car. Nothing.

you have to spin the pistons in, they are threaded



mike

You need to turn the piston a bit. Go Download the Brake section from the FSM from www.fc3s.org Then you will know what to do young grasshopper.

Twist them with a pair of channel-locks, or duckbill pliers and they will go right in.

PS , you arent an idiot, that is my title here

A pair of needlenose pliers did the trick for me, thanks guys. Is that a common sportscar thing, or is it unique to rotary vehicles?



On a slightly different note, which bleeder valve do I want to use after I re-install?

Your title is Apex13b, which sugests that your logic may be circular, but at least you don't claim to be an amphibian. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/smile.png You ever try to breathe underwater? https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...#>/biggrin.png

its a mazda thing, i dunno about much else



mike

I've always used the top one on the rear calipers.



And I believe thee's other cars that require you to turn the psiton back in instead of just pressing it.

Its not a Mazda thing. On all rear calipers that have emergency brakes they screw in like that. Ive seen it on Saturns and Nissans. From what some mechanics have told me is that when you pull the ebrake handle the caliper screws out to squeeze the disk. This is why you have to turn them in. I mean would they sell a special tool for this in just about every auto parts store if this were just a Mazda feature?

all hydraulic e-brake systems seem to have the same style piston (single at least), i just looked at my dad's 97 saturn coupe and the rear piston looked the same and had to screw in, then i put a set of hawk HPS pads on the car https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR#>/bigok.gif

i've worked on cars that have a different setup, but the screw in piston is very common on the rear disc cars, to facilitate an integrated manual parking brake.



for example... on a crown vic that i worked on which had rear discs, it had a small drum brake integrated with the rotor for the parking brake. That made it a real bitch to get the rotors off because the shoes had worn into the rotor-drum and a nice rust ridge formed (yum, salty winters) ... reaching the adjuster through the backing plate was a pain in the ass on that car because the shoes were very small everything was a tight fit. but on that car the piston compressed normally.



my fiero had screw in stock but the wilwood setup has a seperate caliper for the parking brake that is purely mechanical.