Hi,

Seems like the driver's side front brake is sticking to the rotor while driving my 97 legacy gt wagon. It heats up and you can smell it after driving longer distance. I'm not driving it until serviced. I have the haynes manual, but any advice from you guys would be great. The brake pads have a lot of life left on them thickness wise at least, so I'll take a closer look at the caliper. Do I need a repair kit or do I just replace the grease and clean it up? Thanks.

Its a frozen caliper. You will need new pds as these may be glazed.

 

You need to remove the calipers (do both sides the same way). Clean the sliders and lubricate them with brake grease.

slides are likely frozen or the piston is stuck in the bore.

sometimes they are REALLY hard to remove, like they'll need heat to get them out.

 

easiest solution is to just get a used caliper and bracket and install it.

if you're rather not spend the $50 you'll have to examine it first to see what you'll need.

 

if you can get the slides off you might just need a new boot or nothing at all if you're really lucky.

I agree. With a little luck, you should be able to take off the caliper and lube it up. At least remove it to check it out.

 

My experience with stuck calipers is due to the last set of pads wearing sop low that the piston is hyper extendes and rust forms on the exposed piston beyond the boot. So when you push it back in fo rthe new pads, it can get stuck.

 

If the boots are ripped and it looks really bad, just get a new/reman caliper, as it will be easier than trying to rebuild it, or based on the availabiltiy of a rebuild kit.

 

If you can get it apart, and free up stuck sludes, you can clean them up with pb blaster and steel wool, and re-lubricate it. You should be able to find boots or new slides pins.

 

Use 'syl-glide' brand or equivalent sylicone lube. This particular brand can be found at napa. or do the 99c packets at the auto retailers.