hello,

I was replacing my pads and rotors today on my 88 formula and my rear driver side caliper piston will not go back in. my haynes manual says if i dont have the tool to turn it in, to use a pair of needlenose pliers to turn it counter-clockwise in. that didnt work at all, and ended up with my knuckles busting multiple hard things. i read somewhere on here you can also use a c-clamp, how do i go about doing this?

thanks

I have used a c-clamp to push it back in--you need to remove the e-brake lever put the nut back on to keep the screw from going back inside--but if you have a stuck piston you might want to get a new caliper--I dealt with the same last summer and got a newly rebuilt one from a place called Delcoline for $100

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Pat Jones

I'm pretty sure '88's are different in some ways, but on other years the key is to remove the ebrake lever from the back of the caliper and turn it backwards relative to how the ebrake cables turn it (it's different depending on which side of the car the caliper is on). However the more likely cause is rust on the hose brackets. The rust expands and squeezes the hoses enough to keep them from allowing fluid to return fluid. People have mentioned this on the forum recently. We used to say to replace your hoses. If you get newsletters from rockauto.com check the last one. They explain it very well. You can probably do without the brackets all together. I got all the hoses replaced this winter. They used the cheap hardware store clips I gave them, but not the original or supposedly correct ones I went to great trouble to get.

ok, so take off the e brake lever, put a socket over the back bolt to protect it, then just use a c clamp and try to compress it back in?

also, i havent taken the caliper off. am i supposed to do that? whenever i read how to change out pads it asks to do this, but i did all 3 of my other wheels just fine without taking the caliper completely off. i only took the bracket off to be able to take off the pads/rotor.

according to the Haynes manual you will need to remove the caliper---anyway its probably easier that way too----I almost always take mine off to work on them anyway---gives you a chance to lube the slides too

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Pat Jones

I use a harmonic balancer puller as a caliper puller. This way you can turn the screw without taking everything off. The tool pushes the piston in by pulling the caliper off it.