Driving home yesteryday i start to smell of a car guys worst fears. BURNING BRAKES!!!! (but honestly way less of a scare then the burnt oil, or clutch, or coolent). It was coming from my rear wheel, i had also noticed my E-brake going up a few more clicks then normal. Took it to a tire shop, of course they said i had to replace the whole caliper, this part is about $500.

My question is, has anyone ever found another way to fix a seized caliper? personaly i think its just a loose E-brake cable but no one will belive me. If i take the caliper off and force it back in will it just get stuck again with i hit the brakes next time?

whoa is me

 

there are several... maybe hundreds of modes of failure of what you are experiencing.... what do you think that the internet can actually do?
I think you are about as likely at getting the right answer this way as you would by throwing at a dartboard.

There are several parts of the caliper, and any moving part can sieze, now depending on which part, and how siezed it is, the answer will be different.

Calipers are rebuildable. and available used. a new one at 500 is about the highest priced option.

You need to assess if the handbrake cables are free. Then there is a lever on the caliper that needs to be free moving and must spring back every time you release the brake.
the caliper piston needs to be free moving, and there is a threaded adjustment inside the caliper for the parking brake.
also the caliper needs to move freely on the guide pins of the mounting bracket or that will cause the brakes to stick on also.

To fix the caliper properly, you need to remove it completly. disassemble it. clean it thouroughly. replace worn or broken parts. repair any of the corrosion coatings, then reassemble/lubricate and re-install.

I dont see how thinking about a loose cable will make tight brakes.. seems a little illogical to me. Maybe a tight or stuck cable?

Generally speaking for this car, there is no need to adjust the cables, once it is set at the factory. There is only an adjustment to take up slack, it must be unloaded when the handbrake is released. the lever on the caliper must move completely back to its dead stop when you release the brake, otherwise it will not self adjust properly.

This is where you can step up to the plate, and go with the mechanic to SEE the problem. Let him explain what is stuck and why it needs to be replaced. 500 dollars will buy a lot of mechanics time and parts...

 

Hey thanks for the tip Sport. Im going to try to take it apart this weekend and see what i can do.
i saw the calipers on Ebay for $250, thats no to bad. but i think your right, im going to have to take it to a mechanic to do it right... Turns out the last guy that did the brakes (last owner) didnt lube it up, so becuase he wanted to save $1 its going to cost me about $500.... funny

 

Mr. Fox, I have had a few calipers freeze up on me. I managed to get them for around $110 a caliper from a European car parts place that was near me. What I have seen is the arm for the E-brake will tend to bind up, leading to the caliper being unable to release the e-brake, leading to the smell that you are experiencing. You can sometimes take the arm off and lube it up to correct the issue. If you pay attention to when you are setting the e-brake, if you feel the beginning of it be real easy and then it stiffen up some, that is the classic sign of the e-brake arm starting to stick on you. What you are experiencing is the balance beam shifting, taking up the slack in the e-brake cable. If you pay attention, you can catch this problem early and save yourself a lot of heartache later.

 

So Thermo, sounds like you know exactly what im going through. So just to clearify, now that im at this point, the caliper is usless right? there is no fixing it? I have looked everywhere and it seems that Cardone part number 19-3179 is what i need, but they have stopped rebuilding them.

 

Check Rockauto.com they have rear calipers from cardone and from Centric both are good.

 

the little arm on the caliper for the handbrake ususally seizes up behind the dust shield.

all you have to do is undo one little screw, remove the arm, then use a teeny screwdriver to pry off the rubber seal, then clean everything up, lubricate and put back together. Zero Dollars in parts, and hardly half an hour of labour.....

you really need to get your nose in there and see what is not moving freely..

 

Mr. Fox, I would figure out where you can obtain a new caliper fairly quickly, but if what sport30 says is true, I would go that route first. Then if you get it apart and find out that it is either a lost cause or you managed to damage it as you were taking it apart, you can slap the new caliper on without having to sit a few days waiting for the part to show up.

 

I LOVE DANA0330!!!!
After 2 days of doing internet research and store calling. i counldnt find the caliper for under $400. then i read this wonderful persons post. they are one of the only carriers of the Cardon part. (they are alos listed in the Cardone website) They have the caliper for $67, plus core.
Im going to try Sports idea, because i still need to drive it as i wait for the part, but still, heat damage is done, and i would be a fool to think it wont happen again.

AGAIN THANX GUYS FOR THE WONDERFUL ADVICE!!!

 

i got the same problem, my brake even caught fire once, i paid $45 to get caliper repaired and then realize that the rotor got thinner because of the broken caliper, so you might want to check on rotor too.

 

100% percent caliper. Like I said in another post you may want to bite the bullet and change both sides as I changed one side that was seized and about a week later the other side seized and had to be changed.

 

Ok, I am starting to get the effects of another caliper starting to seize on me (this will be number 3 in 3 years). I removed the arm for the e-brake cable and I don't have a rubber boot back there. Anyone know how to disassemble the caliper to rebuild it? This is getting a little silly as I don't even really live in a salt air area. I tried taking a little bit of WD-40 to the cylinder and helping it work better, while it helped, still not returning the whole way, leading to the brake dragging as I drive and a hot rim.

I have the e-brake completely backed off for the moment and don't plan on using the e-brake for the next few weeks till I can get a new caliper in. I'm tossing around the idea of rebuilding it, but if I can find a new caliper for around $100 or so, then I may go that route as the time needed to rebuild is probably worth the money and easy.

 

generally the problems are not the piston that seizes, it is the 2 bolts or pins that stop allowing the caliper to slide.
i always use anti seize on them,its silver high heat grease and much better than standard silicone based grease.
pull the caliper right off, use break cleaner to degrease where the bolts go, get sandpaper and wrap it around a pencil and go to work inside those holes and then on the bolt (not on the threaded part if there is one, i cant remember off hand)
use break cleaner to get all your dirt out, and a compressor to plow them off if you can.
then grease the bolts up and reassemble.

 

They make high temperature grease specifically for brake caliper parts. A tube costs about $5 at your Auto Parts store. Don't ever use silicone grease, WD40, etc, for the caliper sliding bolts. They can't withstand the heat the brakes produce and will dry out in no time. Just use the right lubricant for the job and go get a tube of the specifically formulated brake caliper grease.

When I changed my rear brakes a few weeks ago, I took the pins apart and noticed the sliding action was sticky and the existing grease was sticky. In retrospect, I think that's what made my rear brakes wear prematurely - the fronts handle 80% of the braking force, so it's bizarre for my original front brakes to have ~60% wear on them while the original rears were nearly worn out. I cleaned the old greaseoff and regreased the slide pins/bolts when I changed out my pads, and immediately noticed the sliding mechanism worked so much better.

 

Mike, the brake itself is fine. The caliper slides side to side just fine and the piston moves in and out as it should (actually found out that pushing the piston in is most easily done with a 14mm allen wrench with the ones I have). The issue is the arm for the E-brake. That is binding up. One of the previous posts here talked about removing the arm and ten removing a rubber boot that is there. The one I have does not have a rubber boot there. Odds are, it has an o-ring just inside the body. I'm curious in how to get the cylinder for the e-brake out so I can clean it up and put in a new o-ring if needed. The mechanical side of things is not a problem once I know how they come apart. The question is how do the calipers come apart so I can access the e-brake portion of the caliper? I'm looking to get into the caliper itself, not simply grease the slide pins. As the saying goes "I want to get inside and see what makes it tick".

I may end up going to a junk yard and getting a spare caliper to do some diasection on to see what is going on inside. But then, I may be getting a new caliper for the car and will then sacrifice the core charge to learn a little something too. Who knows.

 

i thought the e brake on these ones just pushed fluid in to squeeze the piston ?(just like normal breaking but forcing fluid in when u pull the handle)

 

Not to my knowledge. Even so, if I step on the brake, then that should force the e-brake back to its proper position then since the cable would not be holding it in place. We'll see. I have my hands on a way to get a new caliper for $140 plus S&H and then get $70 back in the way of a core charge. So, we'll see. Right now I am just taking it easy and seeing what happens.

 

For anybody that wants a guide on how to change the pads and rotors on an x-type I wrote a step by step guide with pics on my blog...

here is the link:

Jaguar X-type (2001 - 2005) How to change the brake pads and rotors

 

it cost 0 dollars to fix
i may have a write up somewhere on one of these bourds

but basically you take the calliper of put it on your bench and you will see a lever with a little screw undo that and if i remember correctly theres a seel behind it
clean the crap out of it done ...
i did to few x-types
where your driving and you smell something burning in the rear
and your wheel will be hot

remember its not your cable

look under the car in the mididle you will see the cable were it tees ,one side will have slack
thats the culprit,

also they rebuild kits for 20 bucks
so you can learn how it works
so when the other side goes you no what to do

 

Dennis, atleast on the calipers that I have, there is no visible seal for the e-brake lever. It is buried inside the caliper somewhere. I may have to look into the rebuild kit and see where I can find them and what it takes to do a rebuild. I don't think it will be all that difficult as I used to rebuild air valves for work. We'll see. Just looking for a little bit of insight before I jump in beyond no return.