I have a FWD 92 legacy. The front wheel (passenger) was making a scraping noise on and off. When I removed the caliper I was able to compress the piston so it was not seized. Put it back together and drove it still made the noise. When I took the wheel off again I had the car in neutral and had a very hard time turning the wheel , so I thought that maybe the caliper is not fully bad but almost there. Just to check I jacked up the other side and that wheel was equally hard to turn with the trans in neutral. So for both wheels I have removed the calipers and lubed/ checked the pins and pad contact areas and found no problems. The pads have been on the car for about 2 years and have 80% left/ no wear.

 

Are both calipers going bad at the same time, even though the pistons can be compressed? if not what else can I look at, I have no Idea of what to do. Thank you for any help.

Edited June 11, 20169 yr by ron2368

Did the screws break off that hold the rotor? If so they need ground FLAT. I had this issue on another subie. It holds the rotor out just far enough for it to scrape the caliper housing. I ground them flat, pro lem solved.

ron2368,

 

Your car is 24 years old, and if you haven't been flushing out the brake fluid every 4 years, as suggested in the maintenance schedule, I suspect that your caliper pistons are seizing  in their bores.

 

Its either time to replace the calipers, or to pop out the pistons and clean them and the caliper bores with fine steel wool (0000 is the fine equivalent) and fresh brake fluid. Water gets into the brake fluid over time and will lay in the lower part of the piston bore. It will corrode the bore and the piston, causing the sticking pistons that won't release.

 

If the corrosion is removed, AND ... the pistons and the bores are not pitted .... you can flush them with fresh brake fluid, and reinstall the pistons, if the dirt seal and the piston seals are in good shape. There are numerous videos on YouTube on this procedure, and even a few that show how to use an air gun to blow the dust seal open and simply push the piston back into the caliper after the clean up job.

 

If you have any doubts about doing it yourself, replace the calipers.

 

That said, its also possible that your rubber flex hoses have collapsed, and will allow brake fluid into the calipers under pressure from the Master Cylinder, but won't allow fluid to release back out when you take your foot off the brake pedal, because its not under pressure. Check those rear flex hoses as well.

 

You have some checking to do. Good Luck!

Thank you for the suggestions. I have had stuck pistons before- could not move them with the C Clamp. But these backed off easy . When I drive I can hear a scraping that varies with speed and gets worse with braking, after I apply the brakes a few times it gets much louder. I had a neighbor come over and we tried several things but no change.  Thanks crazyhorse and gbh!

Auto or Manual?

Your hill holder may the problem if you have a manual trans.