I have a few questions relating to rear brakes that I could do with some help with. (2.0 diesel 2007).

I need to change right rear caliper. Few things confusing me.
Firstly detaching handbrake cable, can't pull lever back enough to get cable out, am I best unhooking the spring as grips just ping off? Maybe the fact that I can't pull the lever back is linked to why the caliper is knackered in the first place. There must be an easy way, Haynes says just pull on cable Ha Ha.

Secondly when I have new caliper on car, piston wound in do I pull handbrake up and down to get piston to contact pads or pump foot brake then bleed, then attach handbrake, have heard a few variations that contradict each other so what is the way that works best.

Thirdly if handbrake cable is a sod to get off, then logically it will be a sod to get back on or does having pistons wound in all the way help matters. Would taking spring off be bad idea to help get lever back and cable in if all else fails?

Any help would be much appreciated as I would like my car to stop properly sometime in the very near future.

Thank you
Andy

 

 

andyT, I normally just use a large screw driver to pry the lever back far enough to get it free. Worst case, remove the other wheel and use a screw driver to pry that lever back a little bit. This should give you a bit more cable to play with to get it off of the caliper.

As for resetting the caliper, yep, just move the lever up and down a few times till you can't pull it all the way up. The big thing you want to keep in mind is that you will want to install the cable, then by hand, move the lever back and forth a few times until you are sure that the post on the pad is in the slot in the piston. if the post does not go into the slot, you can get uneven brake pad wear.

 

Thank you for advice, never thought of moving the lever on other side, maybe putting a cable tie round it temporarily (helpers are in short supply round here) to give a bit of slack.
Just having an exploratory fiddle with lever seems to of freed things of a bit, hopefully a bit of lubricant in a few places will delay having to do the job till spring time.
Thank you once more I knew there would be a simple solution to problem.

 

I know this is an old thread, but still valid and, being as I changed my rear disc and carrier last weekend, I thought I'd just add my two pen'th re: disconnecting the hand brake cable.
I had the same difficulty as most people seem to, it is an awkward bugger to remove, and I did attempt simply pulling it off.... and failed miserably. The way I then did it was to firstly remove the caliper and then removed the return spring from the hand brake pivot lever, so it was easy to rotate. Then I put a socket wrench on the centre screw that both pivots and holds the lever and ensured I could then rotate the lever freely with my wrench. I got my bestest pipe grips and held as tight as I could on the end of the cable in readiness, I then used the socket wrench to rotate and stretch the cable in the 'handbrake on' direction, simultaneously pulled like buggery on the grips and quickly rotated the pivot plate in the off direction as far as possible and the cable just about about popped off. I also used the same method in reverse to put it back on with the new caliper.
Hope it helps someone at some point.
PS, this is one job where I find the swearing rating is far more relevent than any sort of spanner rating by way of difficulty. Maybe instead of a 1-5 spanner rating it should be a @*$&! rating.

 

I use a 6 inch one but you can also use a large pair of channel locks and I recommend it for those who have no experience. Use one of the old pads to protect the piston. If it doesn’t want to go back you need a new caliper too. It takes a few times with a C clamp to recognize a bad caliper. A clamp will scrabble word finder let you push back a bad piston and put it back in service