Hi guys,

I tried to fit my Sierra rear callipers last night and can’t get them over the pads. I have rotated the piston clock wise to get it to go in as far as possible (on handbrake adjustment), but can’t get the whole piston to go in any further. Any ideas please?

Cheers

Graham,
What did you use to wind in the pistons?
I used a pair of circlip pliers located in the 'v' shaped cut outs.
They were pretty stiff and took quite a bit of persuasion to rotate and that is on recon'd callipers.
But they do wind in quite a significant amount.
I also had to line up one of the 'v's so that it located with the raised 'stop' on the back of the pads in order for the calliper to slide fully home over the pads.

Andy.

Northy,

I think you just need a bit more brute force and ignorance!

I posted about this at the time of doing mine as couldn't understand why they weren't going anywhere- seems you just need to push harder!

You aren't actually winding anything in as far as I can tell- otherwise you'd eventually run out of thread! It's just the turning that allows it to go in. I balanced the calliper on top of the chassis rail in the end so I had something decent to push against.

HTH,
James

Yes you are winding something in, the pushrod for the handbrake mechanism.

They can be tricky to push back/wind back, but most likely problem has already been mentioned above, the bump on the pad needs to align with one of the dips in the piston or it will stick out too much.

I usually resort to using a G clamp to push back stubborn pistons. Watch your brake fluid level if it is plumbed in though - it may overflow

Hey northy! That's my back end so I kind of feel responsible! If memory serves the handbrake mech on both calipers was sound and shouldn't need attention. Continuing to wind the pistons in will only work to a point - when all movement in the handbrake mechanism is taken up. After that you just need good old brute force on the piston - the same as any front caliper.

I took my rear calipers apart and simply reassembled them after cleaning - that'll teach you how they work (and make them work a lot better if you clean each part decently). Definately reccommended - wouldn't you like to know how everything on our car works?

Oh - you might want to borrow 'ford tool xxxxx blah blah', which I made from a spare caliper, to do so. Need good circlip pliers too.

Liam

[Edited on 2/4/05 by Liam]

Hi Liam,

Yeah handbrake do-dabs work on both calipers I cheacked tat, and they even wind in well to adjust the handbrake. I've bought a big G clamp today as I didn't have one big enough, I'll give that a go!

I'd rather not strip them and make more work as I want to tax the car again at the start of next month! Weathers nice today, wish it was mobile....