Brake System Rebuild Part I

Since I've owned the car the brakes have been squeaky and the pedal has been spongy. Now typically on a daily driver I would replace the master cylinder and brake pads; however, I noticed the master cylinder looked brand new and I was able to confirm with the help of DMCH that this was true.

So I put together a list of parts needed and decided I would rebuild all the brake calipers (4 wheel disc brakes), replace the flexible hoses at each corner, and put on new pads all the way around.

I decided to start on this project Saturday. I centered the car a little more in the garage so I could have more room to work and put it up on jack stands. Then I started to take off the wheels. This is where my first problem arose.

The front wheels came off without issue. The rear wheels were a different story. The LR had a seized lug nut that required me use a 5 foot piece of galvanized conduit pipe as a "cheater bar" in conjunction with my 1/2 inch drive ratchet. After some bouncing and sweat I was able to break it loose. The RR had a "boogered-up" nut that stuck in my 3/4 deep socket. In fact that nut is still in there. I tried to use my propane torch and vice to get it out but nothing yet. Luckily I have extra sockets so this didn't stop progress.

The front calipers were easy to remove and rebuild. The front hoses were easy to replace as well. Here's a picture of the LF caliper before I rebuilt it but after I split it on my work bench.

You can see in the second picture the condition of the pistons and bore. There was some light surface rust but nothing too deep or bad. The dust jackets and seals were pretty much perished and the pads looked to be the originals. I don't think this car has ever had a brake job.

I knocked out the front 2 wheels with little to no issue. Now onto the rear. Why is it that rear brakes always seem to be a pain in the ass? First the rears each have an additional mechanism attached to the caliper, the emergency brake assembly. So I had to deal with that. Next, the flexible hoses are between 2 metal brake lines, one that runs to the caliper and the other that runs back inside the frame eventually to the master cylinder. Needless to say replacing the flexible lines required me to actually get under the car to remove the back side of the flex line (fortunately just one nut and lock washer after you remove the metal compression fitting).

I started on the RR and this is as far as I got. After I rebuilt the caliper, replaced the flex line, and reinstalled the caliper, I found the metal line between the flex hose and the caliper had stripped the threads on the caliper side. I checked my tap and die set but I didn't have anything metric nor anything with threads that fine. So I called it a night and got on the interweb to order parts.

Here's a picture of one of the calipers after I rebuilt it.

That's why the title of this post is Part I. Hopefully Part II will be posted later this week. I'm hoping to have my parts by tomorrow or Wednesday. Here's another angle of the car on the stands.