Special tool for rear brake rebuilds?

[124ADDHE]

So what has everyone been doing to rebuild their rear brakes? This job is a bit of a pain in the ass! I found a rear caliper had started to leak..turns out it was partially frozen..time to rebuild, the bores look fine, just some crud. Job went pretty well until it came time to compress the spring washers...i tried a few things and ended up taking a deep 3/4 socket and grinding two channels 180 degrees apart and then using a c-clamp to drive the socket onto the spring washers - it worked pretty well, i still had to manipulate the little cam a bit to accept the parking brake shaft. Just thought i would pass this along; $7 (+ $8 tube of synthetic brake grease) is a lot cheaper than $90 for rebuilt units + you can paint the calipers and now have a tube of proper grease to use for your caliper sliders so that you are not tempted to use wheel bearing or lithium because "thats all you have around"....yes, thats me

If anyone wants a picture of my "tool" ill post one.

[WYSpider]

Compressing the spring washers is the biggest pain.


I ended up grinding the upper end of a clamp I had laying around to fit the area where the spring washers are located.


Then I wrote "FIAT" on it to make it an official tool

[azygoustoyou]

I did something similar. I only grinded a little off one corner so it would just fit and the clamp can still be used for other things.

[124ADDHE]

So did you actually compress on the plunger? or did you use a shim on the washer to compress past the caliper body? Grinding the c-clamp is probably easier than grinding down a socket. Thanks.

[azygoustoyou]

This is what I grinded off my clamp to get the top right corner of the clamp in this pic to go over the plunger and clamp it down, then you can put the pawl in. You only want to be on the edge of the plunger or you won't get the pawl in all the way.

[124ADDHE]

Thanks!

[MrWampus]

WYspider, Love the special C-clamp you made for your brake caliper. I had to rebuild the calipers on my old 79 spider many years ago. I don't remember how I comperessed mine, but for some reason I get cold shivers whenever I think about doing brakework now.

Now that you have ground of the edges of that $5.00 clamp and engraved "Fiat" into it, you can sell it for $158.00.