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I hate the rear brakes


toastemcutlass

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so both of my rear calipers decided to freeze them selfs to the gide pins. so i replaced both calipers and hardware and it costed me $261 at autozone, not sure who to be mad at autozone or gm :lol:

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These cars have very good brakes I have never had a single problem with mine :joke:

 

I've had to replace the whole rear brake assembly and the front pads and rotors twice in the 3years I've owned my car :evil:

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just bought a caliper, complete w/ the e-brake hardware for $44 @ advance, for my mom's 91

 

next time my euro needs back brakes, i'm headed to the junkyard for some core 95+ calipers, brackets, and rotors.

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right before winter i replaced the rear brakes and cleaned the pins off and greased them real nice like i do all my cars and the winter saw alot of excercising of the parking brake so i have no idea what caused it

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exercising eh? being i have an automatic i use that thing almost every time i park. if theres any kind of angle at all that the car is going to roll forward/back to rest on the tranny i put the ebrake in to prevent that. dumb habit i guess, but if the exercising is good for it then i feel even better

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I have never had a problem with them except ice forming on the cables and not letting me apply the parking brake. My brakes work just fine, and I drive about 40,000 miles a year. :) :) :)

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Once in a while, setting the Emergency Parking Brake on a Drum type brakes is recommended so it will adjust the adjuster on the brake shoes and prevent uneven wear on the brake shoes.

 

Setting the Emegency Parking Brake on Drum Brake or Disc Brake is necessary when parking in incline, steep, public, and side streets where some crazy drivers bumps your car while parking either ahead or behind your car.

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Actually, it's a common myth that using the park brake frequently is good for the rear brakes. In reality, it can cause the rear caliper to seize in a clamped position so your rear brakes drag.

 

Even 94+ rear calipers do this sometimes. The integrated park brake in the caliper design is just sucky. That's why GM doesn't use it anymore, and instead has a separate drum brake for the p-brake while the disc brake works independently.

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However, if you don't ever use the parking brake, the rear pads will not adjust for the wear and cause the fronts to do more work and wear out even faster. This has been my experience with our 2 W-bodies.

 

This design does suck. I have yet to be able to retract the damn pistons. So every time I do the rears, I just buy loaded calipers.

 

With all the aggravation, by the time I'm done, I'm usually loaded!

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They are supposed to self-adjust whether you use the park brake or not.

In my experience, 94+ self-adjusts better. 88-93 doesn't self-adjust so well.

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This design does suck. I have yet to be able to retract the damn pistons. So every time I do the rears, I just buy loaded calipers.!

You can rent the tool at autozone and do it in like 30 sec.

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I know W-Body cars, especially Gen1 are notorious for having problems with their brakes. I never actually had to replace my pads, rotors or anything brake related yet. I'm actually going to put my car up on jackstands sometime soon to do my own brake inspection. Last time I checked, there was a lot of meat left on the pads and rotors on all four discs. My e-brake doesn't work when it's cold though, which really sucks. Everything else is pretty good. I pretty much baby my car. I bought it with 145,000km and now it has 180,000km after three years. I don't drive it much in the winter, usually I store it indoors in a friend's heated garage. I guess after I do my brake inspection I'll see whether or not I should replace anything, but everything seems to function fine. Perhaps if I have more time and money I can go out and buy new shocks, tires, and get a new paint job. :D

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Guest TurboSedan

This design does suck. I have yet to be able to retract the damn pistons. So every time I do the rears, I just buy loaded calipers.!

You can rent the tool at autozone and do it in like 30 sec.

 

i've seen that tool for sale at Checker for about $10 i think. wish i would have had that when i did my '94+ rear disc conversion - i ended up using a long nose pliers as a spanner wrench and *very slowly* turned the pistons back in (the used '94+ calipers i got).

 

btw, try delivering pizza in a manual car with no e-brake. it SUX!!! i have to turn my car off every time i stop so i can put it into 1st, or just park against a curb, throw it in neutral and hope it doesn't roll anywhere (which has happened before!) running after your car while carrying a pizza bag is kind of embarrasing :oops: someday i'll get those e-brake cables installed....

joshua

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Big C-clamps to retract the pistons works me....

 

On the rear? I don't even see how that's physically possible unless the threads on the p-brake mech inside the caliper are stripped out.

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Didn't work for me, I tried, believe me. That's why I say the hell with them now and just get fully loaded ones. Just not worth all the aggravation.

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I used a C-clamp on the rears once because turning them would not do a damn thing...With the rotating head on the end of the clamp, the piston was turning itself! lol

 

And Malibuolds- For hecks sake PUT THE PIZZA BAG DOWN next time!

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yep. I have to keep adjusting the c-clamp so that the other end has something to grip on and continue until I got the piston retracted.

 

This is on my 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme 3.1L V6 SL with Disk Brakes front and rear.

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Actually, it's a common myth that using the park brake frequently is good for the rear brakes. In reality, it can cause the rear caliper to seize in a clamped position so your rear brakes drag.

 

Even 94+ rear calipers do this sometimes. The integrated park brake in the caliper design is just sucky. That's why GM doesn't use it anymore, and instead has a separate drum brake for the p-brake while the disc brake works independently.

 

Yep pretty sure mine just did this. '94 GP. The rear pass. side caliper sticks to the wheel when I take off.. once I get going, it seems to let loose.. :?:

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exercising eh? being i have an automatic i use that thing almost every time i park. if theres any kind of angle at all that the car is going to roll forward/back to rest on the tranny i put the ebrake in to prevent that. dumb habit i guess, but if the exercising is good for it then i feel even better

 

Right on ismellrealbad, I always put mine on too. But, I made the mistake of washing my car this winter, and setting my car outside to dry, I put the break on and 3 hours later it was stuck :oops: OOOps. 8)

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