Hello all,
It became time to do a front brake job on my son’s (used to be mine, original owner) 2012 Malibu LT (2.4L ~94k mi.) but I was going to check on the rear pads at the same time and do a brake fluid swap to complete the project. I found that the rears indeed needed changing but I was prepared with a stock of a new set. Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan.
The fronts were no problem – I’d done that job a few times before and it was a piece of cake. The problems started with the rears. I was able to rent the necessary brake piston installation tool but things didn’t go so well. It was extremely difficult to compress the driver’s side rear, almost impossible I’d say. That’s because the passenger’s side piston was, in fact, impossible. No matter how hard I tried to crank on the 22 mm thruster that applies pressure to the shaft that pushes on the piston, I couldn’t get it to move. A limitation was that I was using a Crescent wrench (a fairly large one but still) because I didn’t have a long handled, open-ended 22 mm wrench and even if I did, I’m sure I would have needed an extension of some sort to get additional leverage. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the piston is seized. Given the difficulty of pushing the piston in on the other side, it might be problematic as well.
For the time being, I put the old pads back in because the caliper won’t span the new pads. The car seems driveable with 3 sets of new pads but it’s certainly not ideal. I’m looking for recommendations here. Do I just get a long handle 22 mm open or box end wrench and crank on it? It is important to recognize that it’s pretty difficult to hold the caliper steady while you’re cranking down on the piston. If you’re answer the long wrench question is ‘yes’, then please suggest how to steady the caliper. Otherwise, what’s the alternative? Do I need new calipers, rebuilds or can these be repaired? I’ve seen repair kits for calipers but if the piston(s) is/are seized, does the caliper need to be bored out to remove the corrosion? There’s too many options to figure out the best path.
Any recommendations and suggestions are welcome and thanks in advance for your help.
-mraki
It became time to do a front brake job on my son’s (used to be mine, original owner) 2012 Malibu LT (2.4L ~94k mi.) but I was going to check on the rear pads at the same time and do a brake fluid swap to complete the project. I found that the rears indeed needed changing but I was prepared with a stock of a new set. Unfortunately, things did not go according to plan.
The fronts were no problem – I’d done that job a few times before and it was a piece of cake. The problems started with the rears. I was able to rent the necessary brake piston installation tool but things didn’t go so well. It was extremely difficult to compress the driver’s side rear, almost impossible I’d say. That’s because the passenger’s side piston was, in fact, impossible. No matter how hard I tried to crank on the 22 mm thruster that applies pressure to the shaft that pushes on the piston, I couldn’t get it to move. A limitation was that I was using a Crescent wrench (a fairly large one but still) because I didn’t have a long handled, open-ended 22 mm wrench and even if I did, I’m sure I would have needed an extension of some sort to get additional leverage. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the piston is seized. Given the difficulty of pushing the piston in on the other side, it might be problematic as well.
For the time being, I put the old pads back in because the caliper won’t span the new pads. The car seems driveable with 3 sets of new pads but it’s certainly not ideal. I’m looking for recommendations here. Do I just get a long handle 22 mm open or box end wrench and crank on it? It is important to recognize that it’s pretty difficult to hold the caliper steady while you’re cranking down on the piston. If you’re answer the long wrench question is ‘yes’, then please suggest how to steady the caliper. Otherwise, what’s the alternative? Do I need new calipers, rebuilds or can these be repaired? I’ve seen repair kits for calipers but if the piston(s) is/are seized, does the caliper need to be bored out to remove the corrosion? There’s too many options to figure out the best path.
Any recommendations and suggestions are welcome and thanks in advance for your help.
-mraki