Please Help Cant Get Rear Brake Rotor off!
 

Ok as the title states... i cant get the rear brake rotor off.

This is what i did i took the e brake cable off and all other bolds to where the rear caliper assembly could just swing up and down for when you just want to replace the pads but the caliper assembly will not swing up enough for me to slide the rotor off? I thought to myself he there must be a screw or something on the pivoting caliper bracket so that i can remove the caliper assembly away from the rotor... but when i went to look at the area it looked like there was no screw there just looked like a deformed bumpy nub that barely stuck out?

Does anyone know what i have to do to remove the rotor when the whole caliper is able to be tilted?

The area Im talking about where it pivots is on the bottom pic below the arrow and behind the rotor? is there anything to remove in this are for me to get the rotor off?
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/9...repairtva5.jpg


Sorry for the confusion and yes i did search but i coulden't find anything really useful to my situation

Just look at it. Seriously. It DOES come off, dude. Stare at it for a few minutes and you'll figure it out, and then you'll feel better.

Are you trying to remove the rotor or caliper?

Wait have taken the screw out of the hub? That would help if not.

LOL. You have to take the caliper bracket (the thing that holds the pads) off before the rotor comes off! There are 2 bolts holding it to the hub in the back.

Ummmmmmm - that deformed bumpy nub is what we refer to as a "bolt" There are two of them that need ro be removend in order to remove the caliper bracket to get the brake rotor off.

By the way - your caliper is garbage - get a new one. O torn boot will let dust, dirt, grime and other things into the piston area that can lead to failure. A Reman one will probably run you $30 after core

LOL.

I mean. ROFLAMO!

Seriously ,You are working on the Brakes?..and you don't Know what the Heck you are Doing?..I hope you have good insurance..There are other people on the road too.you are Putting their lives in Jeopardy,along with yours....the brake is toast.Take the car to a Shop.I don't want to read about you plowing through a stop sign and hitting a Family of four.

the ability for the caliper to swing up like that is only for pad replacement. The entire caliper assembly has to be unbolted and moved out of the way to get the rotor off....

And like others have said, your caliper is trashed, replace it.

Ok for the record... thats not my pic i was using it for reference and i tried to see if the rounded nub thing was a bolt but it seriously is deformed looking and no tool can move it (i guess this bolt was messed up from the previous owner)

All i need to know was... is there supposed to be a bolt there or is it a pin the caliper assembly is tilting up and down on, and if so is that the bolt i need to take off in order to get the caliper assembly out the way?

And yes i did take the caliper out but just the actual caliper the metal tilting part surrounding it that is what i was having a problem finding out how this is removed

Yes i took the hub bolt out

After all this i think ive found a conclusion.... One of the heads on the bolts holding the caliper (the deformed nub) has been broken off.

I guess to make sure this is right ill compare the left side to the right side and see if theres a head on that bolt... if there is and the other one is indeed broken will a brake shop be able toget that out?

please bring your car to a shop or get someone who knows brakes to work on your car with you the first few times........

You dont want to be messing with that alone if you have no experience...

at the very least get a haynes manual so you can refer to pictures and reference correct dissasembly procedures....

The so called "NUB" thing has me worried a bit as well and you may need help with that. Brakes are simple and just about anyone can do the job with minimal know how. Good Luck!

isnt there a special tool that rotates the piston inward to push the piston back in ? just thought i'd ask ive looked all over for it .

Yeah any car parts store have them, looks like a little square with nipples for many kind of brakes.

i cant remember where i got mine, but before i found it, i always used a caliper compressor and a pair of channel locks being careful not to damage the boot or piston.works quite well

I dont know why everyone is saying i need to go get it done.... i reassembled everything and im driving it right now i just have bad brakes in the rear but the fronts are fine

All i need to know was if there was supposed t obe a head of a bolt where im having the problem... because if there is and i cant remove the caliper housing i cant remove the rotor due tho the housing blocking the rotor from being able to slide out

Ill just check my other side and see if there is the same problem there... if the other side has a bolt head then the previous owner obviously messed something up

Wtf?!?!

This should answer your question:

With:

ok this will clear things up a whole lot... wish i woulda found this b4 any way... this is he bolt i was talking about

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/563...boltke1.th.png

On my car the previous owner broke the head of this bolt off (sigh)... does anyone think a brake shop can get that bolt off without the head? Being that the position of the bolt is in a tight area i don't think an easy out will work... so what will?

BTW i did buy the piston tool!

Well, When I did my brakes I had the same thing happen; except that the hub bolts were stripped as well. So I just cut the sucker off. I was doing a 5 lug swap and didn't care if the 4 lug hub was ruined though...

Yes they can because i've done it, That same bolt sheared while I was undoing it. Had that horrible feeling when it's really tight then you can actually feel the bolt fail.
I drilled then used an extractor (basically a tapered LH die). Also heated up the area that the bolt inserts into. Plus a shit load of WD40. Came out easy.
At that stage i decided to renew all the bolts for brakes on every corner, Remember you need the actual mazda bolts or as i did went to the local fastner shop a bought high tensile bolts grade 9 or above.

Does anyone else liken this kid to someone walking into an operating room to perform surgery on someone and not knowing what a persons leg is?

People who don't know what they are doing shouldn't be learning when it could cost someone else thier life.

tomoaac thanks for the useful information it was exactly what i was looking for and I will be taking care of it this weekend because i have finally gotten a weekend off of work And i got a whole can of pb buster waiting for that bolt... or whats left of it lol

TitaniumTT dude you have seriously gotten on my nerves since day one because you think you know everything because you have been working on cars for however long and i guess you see that as a way to pick on younger less inexperienced people like myself, but when you really think about it ... how old are you? probably like 2x my age... anyway you do know a grip about cars and such and im sure you had you share of problems doing so also so why don't you go build your self a super car or something of that sort instead of bashing people on forums all daytomoaac

I don't care if I've offended you or not, or gotten on your nerves. Yes I had to learn a few things and yes I did learn them before I took on projects like this myself. The fact of the matter is you cannot recognize a bolt when you see it. You have no business working on brakes without someone staring over your sholder. I'll say it again -

That's called reckless, dangerous & just plain stupid. The last thing I want to see is your inability to work on cars cost someone else thier life. If you die in a horrible firey crash alone than it's darwinism at work.

OP - whether the way you're being given advice is to your liking or not, doesn't change it from being GOOD advice. Never work on a system for the first time by yourself. Anyone having experience with rear disk brakes (and some common sense) will be an asset to stand by you.

Some FSM, parts fiche and training manual links are in my sig. (I think the pic. above is from there).

It is not clear whether you removed the caliper away from the caliper bracket. You want to remove the two screws that hold the caliper to the caliper bracket. These screws not only hold the caliper on, but are part of the slider mechanism which allow the caliper to slide. When the piston on the inside pushes out, the caliper slides towards the inside so that the outer brake pad compresses against the rotor.

Although for pad replacement you could theoretically remove just the lower screw and tilt, a lot of times the slider is seized enough to the calper that you cannot do this. You'd have to therefore remove both screws, (make sure the e-brake is off) and rubber hammer the caliper away from the pads and bracket.

It needs to be repeated that the rear caliper pistons will only compress by turning them while applying a bit of force pushing them inside. The sliders need to be properly unseized and freed up or replaced - use slider grease.

To remove the rotor you have to remove the caliper bracket. The two screws (one of them you believe to have the nut rounded or damaged) are sometimes fine, but covered in crud, rust, etc., so make sure that isn't the case. You can sometimes tap a the proper socket with a plastic mallet and it will move the crap around the bolt head out and you end up with a decent head.

I beat around the bush a little, because you have to look at the whole system and everything around it and not just replace what's broken, but do an overall check of everything - be thorough.

checking out this post really makes me appreciate all the times my father had me help him do little repairs on our cars. I know for sure doing my first brake job on my own would have been really dangerous!

enj01, you must know someone who can help you and if you dont maybe it would be a good idea to look into a local car club where you could get some help. I understand you were coming here for help but unfortunately you cant find that over the shoulder kind of help here.

Good luck.

Here's the perfect fucking example kid. About 12 years ago I was spinning wrenches in a local garage to put myself through college when this guy walks in, an aquaintance of the owner. He start complaining about his brakes so I throw the car (phord taurus) up on the lift and check it out - yup - pads are shot the shit so I gave him a quote. He didn't like it and left. About 6 months later he comes BACK in again, complaining about his brakes. He said he had them taken care of by another shop but they never felt right. Turns out he lied and he did them himself. So as I'm driving the piece of shit in the pedal goes down to the floor and there is this wierd whirring noise. Best way to describe is when you talk into a fan. NEVER heard brakes make a noise like that. So I send the piece of shit into the air and blast the wheels off and the first thing that I notice is the inside of the wheel is wet :Wconfused I look at the outboard drivers side and the the rotor is a little rusty :Wconfused I look at the inside and there is no friction surface left on the rotor!!! The cooling vanes were exposed!?! The fucking dumbass screwed up on the pad locating pins and effectively jammed the caliper not allowing it to slide. The inside pad was doing all the work and wore itself down so fast that the pad with no material left on it wore 1/2 way through the rotor. Oh, the piston in the caliper was leaking like a siv and he had virtually no brake fluid left. In other word his inexperience alomst left him out of control with no brakes. Retarded SOB, ended up costing him like 3x the original estimate.

So I say it again, put the tools down and step away from the brakes until you learn a few things - like what a bolt looks like for one.

I think everyone in this thread needs a time out!

He's trying to keep you from getting you and someone else hurt. He is not saying you are too stupid (or are ya?), he's just saying that you don't have the knowledge. That's nothing to be ashamed of, you came here and asked for the knowledge. The issue is that the brakes are possibly the single most important safety feature on any vehicle. This is why it is extremely important to do everything right, and not everything is as obvious as it.

Anyone doing a brake job should either know what they're doing, or be supervised.

My dad had me watch him do the brakes on our truck the first time I did brakes, and then watched me do the brakes on the sedan. To me, that is the very least training someone should have to do a brake job on their own. Anyone who doesn't know that every caliper is held on by at least 2 bolts does not have the knowledge to do the job safely.

We are also saying that you shouldn't drive around on known bad brakes as you openly admit. If you crash because of it I hope they find this thread so that the insurance company knows that the brakes were a known issue.

....by 'deformed bumpy nub', do you happen to mean 'bolt'?

Like other have said, you should get some help on this. First, primarily watch someone else do your first side, then have him watch you do the second and advise if necessary. Then you can do it on your own in the future.

OH, and TT has probably forgotten more about the FC than you've ever read, heard, or known. That said, I understand that you are a delicate little flower, so we'll all try to be super nice to you today. :)

so, did we ever get to remove that gosh darned nub that was all bumpy and buggered up? :D

:rlaugh:

WIN