Front Caliper Servicing - Guide

[robster 0]

Hi,

I had a search for this but I can't find what i am looking for, plenty of info on the rear caliper servicing but not much on the front. :(

 

My front drivers side caliper is sticking, pulling to the right under hard braking and with the car off the ground its fairly stiff to trun the wheel by hand compared to the other wheels on the car. Not bad enough to have a glowing disc or anything but one of those annoying things you know is there. There is new enough front pads and discs on it so am ruling these out.

 

Is there a thread or guide to servicing the caliper, I read you can get a rear caliper service kit from VW, can you get one for the front? And would I be right in saying you don't need to screw back in the front calipers? They should push ....

 

All info appreciated, if there isn't a guide I will gladly do one with pics when I am doing mine.

 

Cheers,

 

Rob.

[Toad 0]

You should be able to pick up a seal kit from VW just fine. it would be worth getting new boots for the sliding pins too. You should be able to remove the piston with an airline loosely connecting to the brake pipe (be very careful) or by getting an assitant to pump the brake pedal. Personally, i would use compressed air/ pull it out with water pump pliers...then clean up the piston and bore, being careful to remove any contaminationbefore you refit the seals and insert the piston back into the caliper.

 

Yes, you are correct in saying the the piston just pushes in too.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Tom.

[dr_mat 0]

And if you can't be arsed with all that, VW will sell you a recon unit for about £40 all inclusive (on an exchange basis).

[robster 0]

Thanks for that lads, will probably go down the route of a seal kit as I only sometimes use the car at the weekends and have the time to do it. Will take some pics when doing it and will put up a step by step guide.#

 

Just ordered them but they will take a few days to come through as don't have them in stock in Dublin.

 

One more quick on, the car had the NCT (Irelands equivelant to the MOT) the tester, nice guy said there is a pin in each of the rear calipers thats for the hand brake and one of mine is on the way out, he said they are prone to twisting. He has a MKII himself. Any idea on this one?

[dinkus 10]

If you fancy taking some pics while you do it and putting together a write-up in a post on here when you're done it'd make a good wiki article :)

[A-J 0]

The piston seal kits are £8 each as are the new guide nuts with boots and a bit of grease.

[ben16v 0]

tells you how in the golf 2 haynes manual

[nocrap 0]

The piston seal kits are £8 each as are the new guide nuts with boots and a bit of grease.

 

Have you got the part numbers for these please...

[larkin 0]

Im watchin this thread too, in the middle of stripping down some ebay g60 calipers myself.. hey robster, another paddy corrado owner with a binding caliper, whats the odds eh?

 

These are is the part no's on the ones im stripping:

Caliper says "4200" "323235717 7" and "CN 4"

The Carrier has "32323538/2" and "CN 4201"

 

A part number for the right piston seal kit would help me out too if anyone has the info to hand..

the guy in the dealers says i need a vin number and theres a few different kits,

[robster 0]

How you doin

I done mine recently enough, i kept the part numbers i used. have them at home and will pm them to you tomorrow if you still need them.

Have you the pistons out of the calipers yet? A very handy way to get them out is to stick an air line in to the bleeder hole on the caliper and place a cloth over the piston to catch it. When you hit the air the piston just pops right out but the ready to catch as it can fly out depending on the air pressure and is not too light eighter.

When you have the stripped down give the a good clean, i got a bit of crudd sitting in my caliper when the piston dropped out, couldn't have been doing them much good. Are you putting these on a corrado or golf?

 

Rob.

[larkin 0]

hey rob,

im planning on putting them onto my 16v corrado so that i can fit the 280 discs..

have the calipers cleaned up pretty well but havent removed the piston yet, waiting to order the piston seals..

 

just got off the phone from the dealer there, they really dont want to help if you dont give then the VIN of the car the calipers came from! However after a bit of coaxing he looked up a 1994 corrado. Only one seal kit came up on his computer for all 94 corrados, the part number is 431698471B.

 

so im assuming that all the piston seal kits are the same whether you have a 16V 256mm type caliper or the 280mm/288mm ones? maybe all girling 54s use the same size seals? maybe someone else can confirm?

 

-barry

[Supercharged 2]

Yep, all Corrado's came with Lucas / Girling 54's so seals are all the same as the 54 is the piston area in mm.

 

Also - the MK4 rear calipers have the same size pistons as the originals and also use the same seal kit.

[larkin 0]

good thread here on stripping/rebuilding...

 

http://forums.fourtitude.com/zerothread?id=3186789

[boost monkey 0]

 

just got off the phone from the dealer there, they really dont want to help if you dont give then the VIN of the car the calipers came from! However after a bit of coaxing he looked up a 1994 corrado. Only one seal kit came up on his computer for all 94 corrados, the part number is 431698471B.y

 

SO unhelpful aren't they! It doesn't take 2 minutes to look up a car on ETKA, it's laid out similar to VAGCAT afaik.

 

This is exactly why I drive 10 miles either way to the North Oxford dealership, and avoid the local one like the plague :nono: