i'm putting the new rotors, pads and painted calipers back on the I30 last night and everything was going good until I got to the rear. The caliper piston was extended so I couldn't fit it over the new fat pads..normal. Just c-clamp the biatch and push it back right? WRONG! It didn't budge. I tried the other side, same thing. Then I tried opening the bleeder valve, nothing but a mess came out of that deal. Then I thought, "I bet this e-brake has something to do with it, like self adjusting or something". I take the spring off and play with it only extending the piston WAY FURTHER then ever before! (thank god for dads) My dad comes out into the garage and I explain my problem. He notices the odd patern on the piston. I said I noticed that to, but had no idea why it was like that. Voila! he figures it out. You have to push and twist the darn thing like a medicine bottle, except for 100 times harder. Now we're making progress but that darn piston rubber boot is turning and causing to much friction to turn it with just a leatherman tool.(not a single pair of needle nose in the entire garage, my hippie friends must have accidentally taken them after some extracurricular activities) So we have to pull the boot out so not to damage the thing anymore since it looks so worn anyway. Two person job, BTW. Someone has to hold the caliper steady while the other one sweats. We get both sides done, THEN we notice that the little notch on the pads is supposed to fit into the cut grooves on the rear pistons! Does it ever end.

Anyway, are a lot of newer cars like this now? If so, this sucks! I bet it all has to do with the parking brake and the rear brakes sharing the same brake pad.

Just to let you know 240 rear brakes are like that. They make a little tool that you take a 3/8 ratchet and use it to twist the tool that you stick in the little slots on the outside of the piston. They are really nice and fairly easy to use. If I need to I can bring it this weekend to KY so you can see it.

sounds sweet tho, post up some pictures when you're done!

Well did you ever get those things put on?

redrocket wrote:Just to let you know 240 rear brakes are like that. They make a little tool that you take a 3/8 ratchet and use it to twist the tool that you stick in the little slots on the outside of the piston. They are really nice and fairly easy to use. If I need to I can bring it this weekend to KY so you can see it.

thanks, but i now know what you're talking about. the guy at the parts store showed me one.

TonyVQ wrote: Well did you ever get those things put on?

if you're talking about the springs and shocks, no. I'm still waiting for those struts to come in. I talked to South West Autoworks today and they said that they were being shipped directly from the manufacturer and that they were shipped on the 9th. Keep in mind that I got the other half of my order exactly a week ago. I'm trying to track down some new strut boots and bump stops here locally since the original ones have apparently turned into dust and have been scattered over 120000 miles of roadway. I"m getting front boots from a NAPA and the rears are being overnighted from a local infiniti dealer. The earliest I'm going to have this thing together is tomorrow night.After all that is done, i've got to do some cosmetic work. It needs it bad. CD player needs to be fixed, inside door handle needs to be replaced, bumper buffed and either buff out where the sunroof wind deflector was or put on another one. Apparently those things beat the hell out of your roof. The whole car needs to be buffed to.I had some free time since I'm waiting on parts so I cleaned the TB and cleaned up the engine bay the best I could with out using a hose(the car is in my garage)

as a reference.. and in no way should this sound insulting or belittling (i worry about my writing when im tired)

rear wheel disc brakes (typicaly) include the parking break mechanism in the caliper. which, if you look on the back side of the caliper, you will see is a lever with a cable running to it. when applying the parking break you pull the cable, the cable in turn pulls the lever, which is connected to a shaft that the piston rides on. this shaft has an extremely wide thread pattern machined into it, so when the lever is pulled the shaft turns and the piston is extended mechanicaly. in order to push the caliper piston back into the caliper housing you must, as has been mentioned, twist the piston using a special (or make-shift) tool.

as a word of warning... although i have never experienced this, my instructor in my brakes class at Automotive Training Center warned us that application of the parking brake and brakes at the same time may cause a jam in the caliper. in other words... bad news bear!

there are also other types of parking brake mechanisms found primarily on large domestic vehicles (caddilacs and lincolns are examples i can think of off hand) where the rotor is acctualy big enough to have a drum portion on the back side of the hat. this is rare however.

being smart is fun...-pete s

Yeah my old z was like that too. we didn't have that tool and it was a b**ch to wrench it down.

I thought the Z brakes had a small drum portion like that...

The hottest looking parking brakes are the ones on ferraris (and other high end cars), they have a tiny looking 2nd caliper.

ser chicken wrote:there are also other types of parking brake mechanisms found primarily on large domestic vehicles (caddilacs and lincolns are examples i can think of off hand) where the rotor is acctualy big enough to have a drum portion on the back side of the hat. this is rare however.

-pete s

the rear disk with drum is actually what i'm used to. i already figured the hand brake was locking, it worked almost like a ratchet the way the piston came out.