hairyapple sez "gimme a brake" lesson

Good news all around on the braking front. Pulled off the rear drums on my Amazon wagon and found I have an almost new set of drums in splendid condition just needing to be shot tumbled to clean them of rust and to remove the glaze from the braking surface. Plus new shoes and hardwre kits and might as well replace the cylinders while I'm at it and since I have them. Hope all that will eliminate the grinding I was hearing back there when braking. But that's not why I'm writing. I was also having a problem with the front brakes on a 62 sedan I just acquired in the fall and didn't have much time tobond with it before winter. It pulls to the right when the brakes are applied and doesn't let go readily. I just removed the front wheels expecting drum brakes in bad shape, but guess what there's a nice set of Disc Brakes with new looking calipers (no rust and clean of brake dust) of the 3 piston type. The pads are quite good as well. The rotors do have surface rust on the braking area but otherwise seem okay. Could it be the rust that's causing the pulling? How can you tell if the calipers are workng properly? The brake line hoses don't look so good on casual inspection, could they be the culprit. Thanks for reading this far-hope you can help.

If you have a binding caliper you can try pushing the pistons fully in. This will lubricate the pistons and break any gunge sticking it. Caveat: if the pistons are rusted then you could damage the seals and risk brake failure so check underneath the bellows. To push the pistons back in I have used a G clamp and piece of wood (against the piston).

Thanks for the inspiration 

The trouble lay in the rubber boot surrounding the double 1 1/2" pistons in the caliper. The rubber must have distorted during the long storage and just dissintegrated when the brakes started to be used again and jammed up the works. I've dismantled the calipers, although they seem almost new, to install all replacement parts except the pistons. Also put in some SS lines to replace the old rubber flx lines. Repacked the bearings and wet sanded the rotors as well. Guess I'll check out the rears next. Thanks for the help.:Banane59: