Replacing my rear calipers was a much easier job than I expected – I had a mate over on stand-by ready for me to shout ‘Help!’ when I got stuck, but the only thing I needed assistance with was bleeding as I didn't have a one-person bleed kit.
So, my ‘How To Replace Rear Callipers’
1. Chock front wheels
2. Release handbrake
3. Jack car up, stabilise on axel stands
4. Remove wheel
5. Undo calliper slide pin bolts (12mm)
6. Slide out calliper
7. Remove old pads.
8. Suspend the calliper by using tie-wraps or similar to prevent damage to the hoses
9. Calliper carrier bolts (14mm) now need to be removed. I couldn’t shift mine so used a squirt of ‘Shock and Unlock’, left it for a minute and the bolts were then removed.
10. Calliper carriers were then removed and cleaned up
11. The rubbers on the slide pins were replaced with new –
a) Pull the pin out
b) Fit new rubber things
c) Push pins back in and ensure the lip of the rubber is over the lip on the pin
12. Calliper carriers can then be bolted back on.
13. Next, the calliper itself needs to be removed. The easiest way I found to do this was to bolt the calliper back on to the carrier – this gave it the necessary stability to enable the 2 x 12mm bolts and pin to be removed.
The flash kind of messed the pic up a bit, but circled in red are the 2 x 12mm bolts and in green is the split pin/pin which all need to be removed.
14. Unbolt the 2 x 12mm bolts
15. To remove the clevis pin, I first levered out the spring pin
Then levered out the clevis pin
16. Next is the removal of the brake hoses but before removing them place cling film or similar (I used a thin rubber glove) over the master cylinder and attach with a rubber band or by re-fitting the top - this will create a slight vacuum thereby allowing fluid to be released from the un-attached hose more slowly. Brake hoses can now be removed - undo the 14mm bolt making sure to keep the washers safe. (Also, cloth and jar at the ready to catch the worst of the leaking brake fluid).
17. The calliper is now free from the handbrake linkage and can be removed (2 x 12mm bolts again – I’d only fitted them hand-tight so were quickly removed)
18. Old and new calliper comparison
19. I wound in the piston slightly using long nosed pliers to ensure it would seat correctly over the pads.
20. Remove protective cap so as hose can be fitted without any fuss and without leaking too much brake fluid all over the caliper