Caterham Rear Brake Piston Retraction Help

[scannon]

I'm in the process of installing new pads on the rear of my '04 Caterham and can't get the piston to retract into the caliper.

 

I've opened the bleeder and used a pry bar and block of wood to try to push the piston back into the caliper with no success. There is slack in the hand brake cable and the hand brake lever seems to be against its mechanical stop so that would not seem to be the problem.

 

It's a single piston design that came with the car.

 

Other rear brakes have had a device to mechanically adjust/retract the piston but I cannot find any thing like that on these calipers.

 

The piston surface has four shallow grooves in it from the outside perimeter towards the center of the piston. Perhaps these can be used to screw the piston surface back towards the actual piston itself but I don't have any tool that would facilitate that and I don't want to get in there with two screwdrivers and muck it up.

 

Can anyone offer some insight into how to move the piston back into the caliper?

 

Thanks,

[TheDingo8MyBaby]

It does need to be wound back in.

 

You could try needle nose pliers, but to keep from damaging the face, I'd reccomend a caliper cube. They're about $10-15 at your local auto parts stores.

 

Here's what they look like:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Draper-52334-rear-caliper-wind/dp/B0001K9V0E

 

EDIT: Found a link for you... I would imagine the caliper cube should suffice...

http://alcester-racing-sevens.com/rear_brake_pads.htm

Edited September 24, 2009 by TheDingo8MyBaby

[yellowss7]

Skip, if you have the standard Caterham rear calipers, I believe they are the Ford Sierra calipers. The windback tool that is shown at the bottom of the second link listed in Dingo's post is probably what you need. I found one on Ebay awhile back like this one.

 

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-BRAKE-CALIPER-TOOL-SET-FOR-DISC-BRAKES-AUTO-REPAIR_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em14QQhashZitem4ceb0cc2b7QQitemZ330360996535QQptZMotorsQ5fAutomotiveQ5fTools

 

On further searching, I suggest you may find even better deals. Just saw one that was at .99 with 10 hours to go. Same set.

 

 

 

 

Tom

Edited September 24, 2009 by yellowss7

[scannon]

Stopped by the local NAPA store and asked what they had. They loaned me the cube mentioned above and I ordered one for myself as I will be doing this again.

 

Thanks for the help.

[slomove]

I did that recently with my rear brakes (with the needle nose plier, though...) but I found I had to lubricate the rubber gaitors around the pistons (I used WD40, hope that does not do anything bad) to make them really go back in. Otherwise it would just turn.

 

Sometimes I will have to take one apart and see how it works.

 

Gert

Edited September 25, 2009 by slomove

[sdca7]

Just resurrecting an old thread to say thanks for the advice. In replacing my rear brake pads, I was cranking as hard as I could with the piston compression tool to no avail, thinking I had stuck pistons. I thought that the piston winding tool was referring to the compression tool. When I read these posts in more detail and looked at the pictures of the device, I realized that I had to rotate the piston. I was able to do this easily with needle nose pliers.

 

Thanks again for the above posts!

 

Justin