I've had the sliders seize up in the past, I'm just used to replacing the bolts and boots every time I do brakes. I only drive a mile to drop my kid off each morning. For the first time in a while, I drove a few miles and realized that I have a brake pad dragging. Yup, rusty sliders. This time I replaced the bracket. Nope didn't fix it. Go back and replace the whole caliper... didn't want to do that. Haven't broken the seal on those brake lines in 100k. And just my luck... the line or the crush washer or the new caliper leaks. Not sure which. I've tried new crush washers (which were larger), original ones, one of each, etc. I am not looking forward to replacing the lines. And in line with my luck, I got air in the line when bleeding and the pedal wooshes when I press it initially. Anything else I should look for? Maybe it was how I bled them. Do you bleed with the car running or not? I didn't have anyone to help so I did the hose in the half full jar method. Might have to find a vacuum bleeder or something. But I still have to figure out how to fix the leak. Advice?
I would just spray the whole everything with brake cleaner to get it dried off to determine where the leak seemed to be coming from first then start from the hardline out and clean the **** out of everything and reassemble then bleed. I recall the 05 OBS I replaced a cracked caliper on needing to be reassembled almost 3 times because something was just barely off. on mine it was a burr in the new softline threads.
Weird. I'm fairly lazy and usually don't even replace crush washers, they've just always worked when I reuse them. And bleeding, I always do it with the engine off. Seemed to as of late have pretty good luck with just cracking the bleeders open and letting gravity do its thing to get the brake fluid flowing. I've noticed that every time I have a line open it continuously drips, so I figured I'd just let it do that while I keep the reservoir filled. I'll have the wife come out and help do the pump and hold method a few times for good measure, but almost seems as if I wouldn't have had to do that step (I just do it for peace of mind still). I replaced the front brake lines on my quad recently and I didn't even touch the brake lever, just let gravity keep draining it while I kept filling. Probably used more fluid than necessary but got the system flushed at the same time. As for fixing your leak, could it be the new caliper has an issue? That's the only piece of the puzzle that's new, right?
yeah, i've been hearing remanned calipers have had pretty high failures New out of the box lately. it's entirely possible it's just a crap caliper.
I ordered two new rear lines and another caliper. Going to swap the caliper first, then the lines if it still leaks.
Rain delay... so I went shopping. Got this and am ready for tomorrow. https://www.harborfreight.com/brake-fluid-bleeder-92924.html Also, grabbed another caliper, lines and a bunch of brake cleaner.
Swapped the caliper today. Fixed the leak. Returned all the hoses and clips and such. Also, that Hobo Freight bleeder was garbage. Didn't seal, didn't draw the fluid like it should. It's bled good enough to get to a place I can put it up on a lift and bleed it properly. I checked the rotor temps with a laser thermometer. Everything seems ok, but a proper flush should make it better.
Well, been hearing a squeak in the forester this time. Turns out both front caliper brackets had a seized bolt. That mean new brackets, rotors and pads. Not a big deal, but not cheap. What is with Subaru caliper bolts seizing up? It seems like it's every other year at this point.
