What a bloody mission I\'ve just been on (not that type Oldone!)

[royal]

Not long got in after having a right old night. The missus car broke down so I needed to get the rex on the road. I\'ve not been in any hurry as I don\'t want to use it in the bad weather or for day to day driving, so its been stored and not drove due to having no pads. No worries I though I\'ll whip down there in the evening and have the pads changed and the oil changed in a couple of hours. The car is in storage at our old house so I had to get the missus to drop me down there. I figured I\'d get the car sorted and drive back myself in the banana. It was dark but I eat plenty of carrots (and have a head torch) so that shouldn\'t be too bad. I ran the engine for a bit and jacked it up and dropped the oil, managing to spill a load on the floor as usual. I then somehow managed to put my head into it while crawling around under the car which was fun :Grrr . While the oil was draining I pulled off the wheels to do the pads. Nice and easy I thought when I realised they were the ones that come straight out the back. I then pushed the pistons back and was having a hard time. I\'d removed the reservoir top but couldn\'t push the piston in still. Eventually it gave, but it popped the other piston out (I wasn\'t able to lever with the old pads as they were worn to the metal and couldn\'t get the space). This piston just wouldn\'t go in no matter what I did. I was getting pretty tired and teasing after a 3am finish on sunday morning at work and not much sleep the next night so thought I\'d get my pads out and do the other side and come back to the sticky one. Then I realised I had the wrong pads,:2eek , a desperate call to Gary at RotaryArt later and I was off to pick up some pads at nearly midnight!  (top bloke). Cue - very tired missus who has to work the next morning being dragged out to drive me around for two hours :Yawn :Hammer :2Mad  Once we got back I got dropped off at the car again and thought I\'d be back before 1am tired but with a car. Wrong answer lofty! After wrestling with the stuck piston it got to 3am and I hadn\'t managed to move it, I\'d removed the seals, messed with the inside, used a vice (prob damaged it more than helped it), and generally banged my head on a wall! I phoned the missus grovelling for her to pick me up. She managed to fall asleep again twice by which time it was 4am! then she was feeling so rough that she wouldn\'t pick me up. So I ended up sleeping in a shed in a sleeping bag on top of my surfboard bags (with the farm cat so at least I had some pussy). Now I\'m buggered, the missus feels ill so can\'t work anyway, and we only have one car!

So whats the score with these pistons? anyone know. All I can think is once its popped out you HAVE to replace the seals to get it in or this one is damaged? It does look scored on the inside, but not that badly.

[Archbish]

front or rear pads?  front pistons push in, rear pistons screw in.  I\'m sure you\'re talking about the front one\'s but I wanted to make sure...

I would hope you\'d be able to recentre the piston, and it\'d slide back in - I\'ve done mine a couple of times (once at Le Mans - thank you Mr Gary for happening to have a spare set with you...!!)

Good luck

OJ

[royal]

Front ones mate, but they weren\'t going in. I spent many frustrating hours, with the calipers on the car and then with them removed. I\'ve replaced whole calipers  pads and brake lines on other cars so didn\'t expect any problems. I\'m wondering now if I need to get a new caliper, which is the last thing I need after having the missus car brake down, the Bmw only a few weeks before and christmas coming up!

[iaint]

Should definately push back far enough to get the new pads in.  Could be something cooked when you mullered the old ones, maybe something in the master cylinder\'s gone kaput?

[royal]

Hmm maybe?never really thought about that as they were still working ok, just no pads left!

[Brett]

Just moving this to the right area.

[royal]

just thought, not anything else like the master cylinder as I removed the caliper from the car to try and sort it.

[iaint]

Sound like time for a big effing hammer.

[royal]

Iant: I had the biggest hammer in the universe and it didn\'t fecking work!! I even snapped my favourite big screwdriver trying to lever them!

[iaint]

Iant: I had the biggest hammer in the universe and it didn\'t fecking work!! I even snapped my favourite big screwdriver trying to lever them!

They must be awesomely strong callipers... if only you could get the sodding pads in there!!!

[clive]

Here you go this should help


http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30329

[royal]

Cheers Clive, but not knowing how to do it isn\'t the issue :-( I\'ve changed many many pads and calipers, rebuilt engines and the rest. I\'m certainly no mechanic, more a \'have a go Henry\' but do have half a clue what I\'m doing, not that you\'d notice if you\'d seen me bashing away lately on my BMW and the Missus\'s VW Golf. All the gear, no idea haha

[Martiny]

How about a Sykes brake wind back tool?

[RedRummy]

you haven\'t got someone stamping on the brakes (or handbrake on) when you\'re trying to remove them?

[royal]

Thanks guys, there was no way they were going in as they were! The list of casualties was: My favourite large screw driver snapped, a large pulley puller bent beyond repair, me looking like RedRummys avator!

I dismantled the piston and took a car restorers mini grinder to them in the end and lightly ground out what looked like marks in the piston bore below the seal. Once I did this the piston slipped in nicely and I managed to get the car out of the dodgy place where it was stored. Its now happily sat in our new garage awaiting some new spark plugs from the nice man at RotaryArts.com!
Unfortunately there\'s only room for two cars where we lived and the landlady has said we have to remove the 3rd car......so along with some other things that have happened over the last few days, the nightmare continues but at least the Rex is home.