installing new brakes questions

[Meatyshells]

well i was putting on new brake pads and roters. everything was going fine but then on my pass side the brake caliper was really messed up. The rubber boot on one of the pistons is turn and the piston wont go back down. So i am getting a new caliper tomorrow.

Question is, do i just take my old one off the brake line and then put the new one on? do i have to bleed the brakes or anything? And how do i know if i drained the master cylinder? and what happens if i did?

[99pewterv6]

Re: installing new brakes questions

yes take the old one off and put the new one on, theres probably a core charge so you would have to bring in the old one.
Yes you will have to bleed the brakes.
Make sure to keep the fluid level at the top on the brake fluid reservoir, check after bleeding each wheel. If the master cylinder is drained, i dont think it will hurt anything just fill it back up.

[D_Fisher]

Re: installing new brakes questions

If its just a rubber boot that is the problem I don't think you need to buy a new caliper. Sounds like you might need a rebuild kit instead. The rebuild kit sould have all the seals and gaskets you need.

I rebuilt both my front calipers last year. It took about 1 hour for the first one because I had never done it before. The second one took half the time.

[Meatyshells]

Re: installing new brakes questions

ok thanks, my next question is, how do i bleed the brakes haha?
and i am justing going to buy a new caliper, i work next to an auto parts store and if i give them my old caliper, they will give me a brand new one for 36$

[crushedout]

Re: installing new brakes questions

DO NOT let master cylinder get empty. That could cause problems with ABS sensors.

My car was a 96 with 130k miles or so and needed new fluid. Does yours need new fluid? Probably so. I got the biggest bottle of valvoline synthetic brake fluid for the job.

When I did mine, I unscrewed the bleeder valve a little and put a clear hose over it that fit tightly. (I bought a brake bleeder kit and it came with the corrrect size hose) and put it in a milk jug and pump the brakes a few times til the resevoir was a little more than half empty and then filled it up and did this over and over until I pumped new fluid out of brake line through bleeder and out clear tube into jug. If you have a clear hose coming off the bleeder valve into the milk jug full of fluid then when you let off the brake pedal it will suck some of the dirty fluid back into that clear tube but the tube would of had fresh fluid all ready in it so the new fluid would be sucked into the actual brake system. Then you just tighten down the bleeder and its good as new. Then I did the same thing on other side but it didn't take that much fluid cause I allready cycled new fluid through master cylinder and abs sensor stuff.

I think your better off buying new calipers than rebuilding them cause its about the same price but less work. Either way if you do one side do the other.

Good luck!!