tweaked

iTrader: (4)

I have the 4 piston brakes. My braking sucks ***, so I bought a set of Hawk HP+ pads. I can change the rear fine. but the front are stuborn. I took out the clips and those rods that go through the pads will not move.
Am I doing something wrong or do I need new calipers?
By the way my current pads are fine. I just have really bad braking power. It is a fairly new master cylinder too.

ilike2eatricers

Maybe try stainless steel brake lines. I have them on my car and it makes the brake pedal alot stiffer which translates into better brake responsiveness.

CarmonColvin

The rods going through the caliper and brake pads are probably just seized up to the rotor. Take a hammer and try tapping them out. I had one stick in a caliper once. I usually just use a pair of pliers to pull them out but the one that was stuck took some liquid wrench sprayed on them and a few taps from a hammer.

Is your brake pedal hard/firm/soft?
Did you try bleeding your brakes?
How old are the brake pads?

dr0x

I took a steel punch and beat it with a hammer with repeated soakings of wd40. They came out eventually.

ra ra rotory

did you push that pistons in on the caliber? if you didnt do that they wouldent come out...

Digi7ech

iTrader: (1)

Don't forget the little clip thing that holds those pins in.
I forget which side it's on but once you get that off you might need to "love tap" the thing out.

Invest in a can of PB Blaster. That stuff works wonders for bolts and other stuff.

Be proud that you have more pistons in your front brakes then most cars do total. Hehe me loves the GTU

88 GTU==TII undercover as a N/A operative...

While you have everything off Paint them too!
On my black GTU i painted mine Red and DAMN do they look good.
Also acts as a good corrosion inhibitor,just buy the paint on and not spray on stuff.

tweaked

iTrader: (4)

I didn take the pins out. I tried to beat it with a hammer and nothing. I didn't want to try a lubricant because if I can't get them out, I don't want oil all over the pads. That would make things much worse.
I did push in the pistons a little, but not all the way. they were not touching the rotor at all. I figured it would be easier after I got the pins out.
i blead the brakes last year and it helped, but now my braking has degraded to a much worse state than last year. It needs to be handled.
My petal is soft and I have little braking power.
How much would I have to spend to upgrade my brakes? Better calipers and rotors? I am staying with 16" rims so I can't go too big.
Isn't there a mod to take a 626 or a 929 brake master cylinder and put it on our cars? what is involved with that?

bingoboy

factory 4 piston brakes/rotors are great stoppers. if yours don't stop well then there is something wrong with your system.

pistons could be sticking in calipers, rubber parts of brake lines could be old and spongey, master cylinder could be going and not holding brake line pressure like it should.

before you go out and get a big brake kit or do anything else substantial you should rebuild those calipers (fairly simple with 25 dollar rebuild kit), get some new brake lines on there (if you want a firmer pedal or the old rubber lines look worn), and maybe get a new master cylinder.

if your brake master cylinder isn't holding pressure in the line then the pressure you apply by pushing the pedal isn't even reaching your calipers. are there any telltale signs of your master cylinder dying? do your brakes get weaker as the pedal is held down, or does the pedal seem to stick down at all? if so the piston in it isn't holding pressure in the system and the fluid in the lines is leaking back into the resevoir.

edit: you said you didn't want to spray any kind of lubricant on the calipers to free up the rods holding in the pads. it should be fine, when you buy new rotors some of them may even come oiled just so they don't rust before you get them. just use some Brakleen to clean off the pads/rotors after you are done. you can get it at your local parts store and its made for cleaning oils/greases as well as other stuff off of your braking surfaces.

dad4ever

I recently r&r'd the brakes on my newly acquired TII that had been sitting for 5 years. I thought that the pistons were seized because some of the pads were worn more than others but it turned out to be corrosion of the alloy caliper under the steel shims that the brake pads slide on (I had to pound the pads out after removing the rods). After removing the corrosion, I greased the surfaces to help prevent a further corrosion and reinstalled with new pads.
I had one rod that was so frozen that I ended up taking the caliper out so that I could get at it better. The end of the pin had to be filed to remove the mushrooming caused by the persuasion before it could be removed.