My car pisses me off!

[yamarider]

Well, today I was trying to replace my rear pads and rotors on my escort, and I didn't know complicated it could possibly be. First I couldn't get the damn piston to go back into the calipers (I was getting slightly abusive and broke a big 6 inch c-clamp on one of them). Then I discovered that it was because of the hidden jewish parking brake adjuster (for the parking brake that never worked to begin with). I got the right side on, but I guess when I was beating the **** out of the left side caliper I screwed up one of the internal mechanisms, and the piston still won't go back in far enough to put the pads and rotors on. So now it's going to be another 80 ******* bucks to replace the caliper. This pisses me off so much mostly because I hate to spend $140 to fix the rear brakes on a car that i'm already planning on selling in a few months(due to the rapid deterioration of the tiny ass jap motor ford decided to put in it).

I just had to get that off my chest before I go nuts.

 

[2xtreme]

for about $10 you can get the actual piston tool to push the piston back in.

Before assuming that the caliper is screwed, try taking the brake line off of the caliper and see if the piston goes back in then.

Sometimes the inside of the hose will deteriorate and there will be a 'flap' of rubber left hanging in there that is acting basically like a valve- not letting the fluid back into the line.

Also, removal of the fluid resevior cap helps.

One more thing, if the piston started to move into the caliper, but not squarely, it could just be wedged into the caliper cock-eyed.

 

[yamarider]

I went and bought that tool because somebody else told me the same thing, but when I looked at the piston, there wasn't any kind of cutout or pin for the block to fit onto. It's got some kind of japanese system that uses an allen wrench and internal gears to adjust the parking brake instead of the screw in system ford normally uses.

I'm getting one of my mechanic buddies to look at it on saturday, but i'm pretty sure it's screwed because when I pump the brakes and push the piston out it'll go back in, just not quite as far as it should. I'm hoping I don't need to replace the caliper, but i probably will end up doing it anyways.

 

[1blurappy23]

nobody said that escorts were bulletproof

 

[yamarider]

nobody said that escorts were bulletproof

I wouldn't expect a 13 year old car to be bulletproof, but there's been well over $2000 spent on repairs in 3 years, on a car that was only $3000 to begin with. That drives me nuts mostly because one of my buddies just bought a 99 stang in great shape for $4600, less than the cost of my car and the repair bills.

 

[pelphrey]

I know exactly how you feel. I have owned 2 vehicles, my first car was a magnet for other cars. It was hit almost every 6 months. And my current vehicle has A LOT of brand new **** on it.

 

[2xtreme]

I'm telling you....try it with the brake hose off.................. I doubted this at first too, until it was the culprit twice on the same vehicle.

And I am not sure what tool you are using. Doesn't sound like the one I have:

You may have to put one of the old pads on the piston to use it.

 

[yamarider]

I thought I knew what i was doing, but I ended up with a big mess. One of my buddies is a mechanic for Estes trucking, and he's going to take a look at it tomorrow morning and hopefully sort out the whole mess for me. The caliper on the passenger side went in without any trouble once I found the PB adjuster, but the adjuster on the driver's side feels kinda notchy like I broke something internal from all the force I put on it. It's a really strange system for the adjustment, I tried explaining it to the guys at Advanced Auto, and my mechanic buddy, but nobody seemed to understand how it worked. We'll definitely try removing the brake line, but from all the circumstances i'm about 90% sure the caliper's internals are FUBAR.

 

[2xtreme]

Well, good luck and let us know what the outcome is...

 

[yamarider]

I'll let ya know how it turns out.

Here it is

And this really pissed me off so bad it's hard to explain my anger. This **** happened 3 weeks after I bought the car because some dumb bitch didn't know where the brake pedal was on her santa fe, and then a week later the transmission went out on the damn thing. The insurance person said there was no way that the transmission was damaged from being rear ended, so I got ****** for $1500 right there, but I took the car to the most expensive body shop I could find to get the work done. They usually only do high end cars like bmw's, corvettes, etc. Cost her insurance company $1500 to fix that little bit, but you can't tell anything ever happened now.

 

[2xtreme]

Huyndai > Ford

 

[yamarider]

actually, my car turned out better than the pos hyundai. My car wasn't that bad, as you can see in the pic, but the hyundai had a cracked bumper, wrinkled quarter panel, busted headlight, and it curled up the edge of the hood a little bit. If you ask me that's pretty sad that an suv comes out of a fender bender worse than a small car.

 

[2xtreme]

But I'll bet the Huydai still ahs brakes!



j/k

 

[storydude1]

Ford REar Calipers. Ok. FIRST, the piston has to turn COUNTERCLOCKWISE to return. Place Channellock on piston , and c-clamp on piston. Tighten c-clamp untill it's good and tight, and turn piston counterclockwise untill clamp gets loose.

Repeat untill piston is all the way in. The PB adjuster will follow the piston in.

I think you may have Fubared a caliper.

And as for pulling a line, that works GREAT IF you don;t break a bleeder trying to bleed it again.

Push the piston in the right way, and it'll go in easy.

the tool used for most rear calipers is called a Rubix cube. square cube with different notches on it. you match notches to slots in caliper, and turn with a ratchet.

 

[yamarider]

thanks, storydude, that's what my mechanic buddy thought it was going to be too, but it's not a standard ford caliper. Just about everything on this car is made by mazda. It has an adjuster inside a hole in the back that uses an allen key to adjust it, it's not the wind-in type like ford usually uses. We ended up replacing the whole caliper, but it took 4 trips to autozone to get all the right parts of the damn caliper. First the waterheads gave us the right side caliper when we specifically asked for the left, then we had to go back again to get a bolt off the old one, then a 4th trip to get the pb cable bracket off the old one. But it works now and i'm at least somewhat happy.

 

[dswwarrior350]

thanks, storydude, that's what my mechanic buddy thought it was going to be too, but it's not a standard ford caliper. Just about everything on this car is made by mazda. It has an adjuster inside a hole in the back that uses an allen key to adjust it, it's not the wind-in type like ford usually uses. We ended up replacing the whole caliper, but it took 4 trips to autozone to get all the right parts of the damn caliper. First the waterheads gave us the right side caliper when we specifically asked for the left, then we had to go back again to get a bolt off the old one, then a 4th trip to get the pb cable bracket off the old one. But it works now and i'm at least somewhat happy.

Mazda is a by-product of ford though so im not surprised to hear that. Glad to hear its fixed. I mean the car i nowhere near new some things are bound to go wrong.

 

[yeoldetymewarrior8]

Ford Wrench

shoulda baught a chevy

 

[yamarider]

****** it I thought it was fixed, but I just looked at the right rear rotor, and the pads aren't even touching the rotor! The piston didn't move out of the caliper at all! I know this caliper worked before, so anybody got ideas?

 

[87warrior]

if the pads dont even tuch the rotor the line could be pluged up or has a hole in it somewhere most likely the line is pluged from trash in it

 

[2xtreme]

if the pads dont even tuch the rotor the line could be pluged up or has a hole in it somewhere most likely the line is pluged from trash in it

Hmmm......