I recently picked up an 88 vert and am getting around to fixing up some of its "warts." I am having two problems and any input would be appreciated.

1. The passenger side power window will not operate either from the driver's side control or the passenger side control. I reviewed the FSM, but it was not too much help. I recently had a similar type problem with my GMC pickup and it turned out the wire had broken where it goes from the body to the door. Has anyone had a similar problem? Any recommendations?

2. I have the car up on jack stands with all four wheels off and am trying to pull the front brake calipers to rebuild and paint them. I cannot seem to get the two bolts holding the caliper to budge. I have soaked it with penetrating oil and run down my air compressor holding the impact gun on them, but no joy (my impact gun is not the best, but still). I even tried putting a wrench on the bolt and trying to break it with a hydraulic jack under it. I only succeeded in lifting the front off the jack stand. My next step would normally be to heat it, but with the aluminum calipers I am a little hesitant.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

I had the same problem. I heated them and it made no difference. Every bolt holding the calipers on had to be drilled out and replaced. It took me forever, and it really sucked. All the bolt heads would just snap off!

I was told by my uncle that a 50/50 mixture of alcohol and vicks icy/hot vaporub would eat away at oxidation, never tried it though. You can search for my thread on caliper nightmares if you want. Let me know what happens...later

 

Anyone else have any input on these problems?

 

I was finally able to get the forum search to work (kept getting server errors) and did a search on caliper removal. In one of the items "geargrabber" was responding to another member and said:

"the impact wrench needs to be 300-450 ft./lbs to do the job right. all the air in the world wont matter on a 50 ft lb wrench."

It got me to thinking about my cheap impact gun so I got online and found the specs for it. It was rated at a max of 250 ft./lbs. which seemed kind of wimpy. After a trip to my local discount tools store I had an "earthquake" gun with a max of 625 ft./lbs. I had to drain my compressor (6 hp, 60 gallon vertical) a couple of times while spraying penetrating oil, but they finally broke loose. I now have the passenger side off and will attack the driver's side later tonight.

I removed the phillips head screws that position the rotor and started whacking it with a dead blow hammer. No joy, but later I will get out the big ball pein and give it a go. Hopefully I will have them off, the calipers rebuilt and painted, before the new drilled and slotted rotors arrive.

 

You can damage your wheel bearings with too much hammering on frozen rotors. Heat the rotors a little with the torch around the hub flange area to remove them with your dead blow. Also, be sure to apply Permatex Anti Seeze to your caliper bolts when installing to prevent any future problems.

good luck,
Billy Molkenbur
Midwest Rotary Motorsports