Brake Caliper Rebuild

It was time to continue the rust fixing so I drove the Mustang back to Tampere. I joined my friend in the garage for an evening and while he began working with the rear wheel arch, I decided to rebuild the driver side brake caliper. The passenger side caliper had been dragging so I rebuilt it during winter. After that the driver side started dragging. I should have done both at the same time...

When rebuilding the passenger side, I learned that pulling the pistons out could be pretty difficult. This time I used the brake pedal to push them out before removing the caliper. I pulled the brake pads and applied some pressure while my friend made sure all pistons came out evenly. Next I could remove the caliper and sand blast it clean. Then it was finally time to disassemble it.

Unfortunately the cross over line snapped in half while I was taking it out. It had corroded pretty badly and the end fitting would not even turn any more. At this point I was extremely happy that I had bought new lines a few weeks ago. A disaster avoided!

I removed the old seals and cleaned everything as well as I could and it was time to put the caliper back together.

I had new Raybestos seals and four new pistons. After pushing the seals in their grooves, I lubricated the pistons and pushed them in. The new cross over line needed some bending but otherwise assembly went smoothly. I bolted the caliper back to the car and then applied some silver paint on it.

I had also bought new braided brake hoses but couldn't start using them yet. It seemed that the brake line fitting on the car was also pretty corroded and would most likely also break the line if I tried turning it. I'll have to replace the lines later before installing the new hoses.