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seized calipers / stuck emergency brake


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Posted

Damn W-body brakes.

 

I'm pretty sure that either my parking brake is stuck on or my rear calipers have seized. My car is a 1990 lumina 3.1, and I keep hearing this noise in the rear of the car when ever I take off. It sounds similar to when I set the parking brake. Now here are my questions:

 

1. I'm going to do a close-up inspection of my brakes later today. How do I tell if A) my parking brake is stuck or B) if my calipers are seized? And I mean physically.....how is it going to look/feel/act any different if either of the above scenarios are the case.

 

2. If the brake is stuck, or the calipers are seized, how do I go about repairing them....do I just have to replace them?

 

If I do find that the rear brakes are screwed again, then I'll probably just do the 94+ conversion while I'm at it.

 

Thanks guys!

 

SmoothSteve

Posted

My rear calipers are sticky.. as in when I apply the e-brake they stick (seize) and lock the rear wheel.

 

 

I put in on one day (I never used the e-brake) and the damn thing got sticky and wouldn't completely unlock. After driving about 2 blocks it got real f'n hot and the caliper was glued onto the rotor like cement.. I had to drive home with the tire locked up and rubber screetching against the pavement. When I got home I took the wheel off and used a crowbar to push down on the spring assembly of the caliper to get the caliper off the rotor.. and it drives fine that way.

 

I belive I need to get new rear calipers, cause the e-brake cable looks fine and the caliper looks like it just wants to stick all the time. With normal driving it seems all the braking is done by the front brakes anyways, so I'm not gonna bother fixing the rears, at least not anytime soon.

 

Don't know if that helped you out any, just sharing my experience.

Posted

dave we had something similar happen to my frend's saturn this winter...it wasn't fun fixing

Posted

Yeah.....these damn w-body brakes suck ass. I just had the ENTIRE rear braking system replaced a year and a half ago, and now this new problem rears its ugly head. Any body know how much it would cost to get all the components for the 94 rear brake conversion? And also, does anybody know of any good junk yards? mine around here basically is worthless.

 

Oh yeah.....is it possible to use the 1st gen. parking brake on the 94 brake conversion?

 

SmoothSteve

Posted

When my cruise control threads broke to the throttle, I contacted parts@scottysauto.com for a price, and they were the best, shipped, cost I could find.

 

HTH, and sorry about all the troubles. Best of luck!

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