Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Rear caliper seized

I have disc brakes in the back. Both parking brake cables were frozen. Purchased two new cables from Ford. Found that one side rotor was frozen solid. took caliper off and piston was locked tight as well as pad was cocked in caliper. I was amazed that Auto Zone had a rebuilt caliper in stock. They were around 39 dollars each. So I picked up two of them. I put the rebuilt caliper on the drivers side with no problems. Went to passenger side and begain to take out the bolts holding the caliper to wheel. Bottom one came out ok, top one would not budge. Used PB spray on it and I still could not remove it. These bolts have the Torx head on them. Tried again and my torx bit became stripped. Sprayed some more, waited and purchased another torx bit and tried it again. Same thing, stripped this one also. Started to use a chisel on it and I have about a quartr of the bolt chiseled away and it still would not budge..... I Really don't want to have to pull the rear knuckle off to get to this....Anyone have an suggesttions?

Thanks,
Bob

Go to sears, they have some rounded bolt extractors for about $30..Beat them on to whats left of the bolt with a hammer and they will come out, a mapp gas torch might help as well.

from experience i would say you are turning the bolt the wrong way.. stop and look at it again... then picture that you are doing it correctly... i would have to bet that if its the bolt behind then you are doing what i did many of times.. turning one way, but the bolt need to go the other way.. its an easy mistake to make when trying to do it in a hurry..... if that not the case take a propane torch and heat up the bolt area without messing up the rubber in the caliper and then try.. someone might have put some locktite on it and it might be the kind that has to be heated to release the caliper bolt... i also had this problem on a
83 mustang.. broke three torx bits on it before i found out that i had to heat it up first... then it came off like it was hand tight....

Well, I ended up taking the knuckle off. It wasn't that bad. Once knuckle was off, I then could hit it better with a chisel and it loosened up. Once I had the caliper off, I then was putting the wheel back on. I was hitting the knuckle back up on the strut. I had it on almost all the way when something fell down from the wheel well above. Hmm, what is this......well it looks like a chunk of the spring broke and fell out!!!!

Now I need new springs. I guess I'll replace struts also...

I did notice that when comparing my frozen caliper to my working one, that the outer part that slides onto the caliper, the piston that screws down the outer edge did not have a bolt to fasten it down. Completely different from the other side. I guess I'll to purchase a new one....

when I last did my rear brakes, I had the same problem with the Torx bolt. I used vice grips on the bolt head and was able to back out the bolt. There was just enough of a lip on the bolt head for the vice grip to grab on to.

How hard was the cable replacement ? I never use the parking brake and as a result if I do the cables hang up and I have to get out and pry the caliper arm back. I figured it was a big job since the cable disappears behind a binch of heat shields, and hence just live with the inconvenience.

You have to drop the tail end of the exhaust system. Since it is on rubber hangers this is easy to do. Once down, then the rear shield should be removed. Once it is removed, you can then see the cables and you just pull and unclip them.

The cables from Ford cost me 41 dollars each. O'relly sells them for around 14.00 - found this out after i bought one ford cable. You can't mix and match. Either get two ford cables or two o'reilly cables. The oreilly cables are a bit shorter and you need to reuse the white plastic bushing. The ford cable has the bushing as well as rub insulator where the cables touch the body - O'relly do not.