why can't you loosen or remove the bridge bolts on the 4 pot calipers? I have done this and fear iminent danger now. And I need/want to replace them so why is it so bad?

 

because there is never a need to remove those bolts
your calipers are made of two castings, an inner and outer. those bolts hold the two halfs together. if you have loosened them or removed them, re-install them using some sort of very high temp locktite. or better yet, JBweld. well, nevermind, don't use JBweld.

 

You'd break the seal of the internal brake fluid passages.
Good luck trying to get everything to seal back...
Can you say brake failure?


-Ted

 

Have you reassembled them yet? If so .. do they leak?. The reason they don’t want you to split the halves is because it is sometimes difficult to reassemble them with out leaking. If they are not leaking under pressure then you are ok. I have split the case bolts on many brake calipers. Most calipers have little o-rings inside which have to be aligned correctly as to not block the fluid passage at the same time you do not want to pinch the o-ring during assembly

 

I loosened them... I may ( don't remember) have removed one or 2 of them and then realized WTF am I doing and put them back in.

I didn't take all of them out on either caliper and only the drivers side had I loosened and or removed any of them.

Chances of badness???

 

anyone else please?

 

I took the halves apart when I got my rebuilt ones from kragen. It was easier to paint them then I put them back correctly and they are fine. Now problems so far and it's been a month at least now. But these were clean and fresh I don't know about some with 100k+ miles on them.

 

Hmmmm, I THNIK, why it may be so difficult to put them back together is because calipers do flex when under pressure. Overtime, this flexing fatigue probably moves things a little, making it difficult to get a proper seal again. How did mazda put them together in the first place? A fixture?