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Stuck Brake Caliper Pin - 1996 cadillac fleetwood

2K views 18 replies 6 participants last post by  CadillacGirl_1966 
#1 ·
Right, I know it's been a while... I've got a 96 cadillac hearse that desperately needs new brake pads. I had everything I needed. Got all excited about being able to finally do *something* on one of my cars.. Got the lower pin out... top pin is completely frozen. This is a full floating caliper. The pin has a 3/8 allen wrench hole in it and is rounded on the outside so I can't do anything with that.. I have tried using WD-40 and a weighted hammer, and a breaker bar. It will NOT budge. Since this is my daily driver and the squealing is getting worse and worse every day, I need to get this done. I initially thought it was the wheel bearings but on closer inspection the brake pads are pretty much completely gone. They are well past the wear mark and are down to the metal tab. Someone mentioned to me using heat but the bolt is very close to the brake hose and I honestly don't really want to have to take that off and bleed the caliper after (because I don't know how). I guess I'll figure it out if I have to. I already wasted a day trying to get this fixed. Any suggestions?
 
#3 ·
Hey thanks for the info. I will see if my landlord has a small blow torch tomorrow. He has tons of tools everywhere. Except apparently the size bit I needed to fit in the pins lol... we had to make one from an allen wrench o_O I just really cant take another day off work but if I do it real early it might be ok
 
#4 ·
I got them out finally today. Out of the 4 caliper pins, 3 were seized. There is no telling when the last time a brake job was done on this car. The brake fluid is almost black. This is just a temporary fix until I have the money to replace the rotors, calipers and flush the system and everything else. I have 3 other, older hearses waiting for work to be done on them, too. Thanks for the suggestion! I was scared at first to put the flame on it but the old license plate trick was perfect. This caliper is bolted straight to the steering knuckle so thats actually what I ended up heating as I did not want to heat the bolt itself. I used a pipe on the end of the ratchet and a jack to push it up. It was an awkward angle and I could not get myself in there, let alone had the strength to actually move it. The jack worked great at turning everything after the area had been heated up. I was afraid I might break the bolt but I went very slow.

This was my first time doing brakes on my own car in a real world application. It's been 2 years since I was in brake class at school. And we never actually drove the cars we worked on afterwards, so there was no telling if we ever did anything right. I got an A in that class and left school not knowing how to bleed brakes. That's a community college for ya..
 
#6 ·
I could not get the little sleeves off one of the pins. That was the one that was frozen on the first side. It may as well be welded on. I had t throw it back in because I had nothing else and the part is special order for some reason. They have the pins, but not the sleeves. The rubber gaskets that go inside the holes where the sleeves go are pretty banged up too. I honestly did not even know there were any in there at first. I lubed everything as good as I could and it was obvious why everything had corroded and seized up in the first place. This hearse was originally in service over in Connecticut. So, I'm actually kind of lucky when it comes to anything on the underside of this car. As I said there is no telling when this was last done, but the last time she was in service, which was really not all that long ago, was in Oklahoma. Pretty sure it snows there.

The passenger side bolts were actually much more corroded. Just luckily not welded in place. I cleaned them up with a wire brush. I'm hoping to replace everything in there by january.
 
#9 ·
They have the pins but not the small sleeves that go with them. They go inside the hole the pins go through and allow them to slide. This type of caliper doesnt have rubber boots. The kit that has the sleeves is 3 times the price of just the pins and is special order. Everything is being replaced in January anyway. They work great, was able to test today. The only issue I saw was that one of the pads was a little too snug. Now occasionally it makes a little bit of a creaking sound. It's fine otherwise and will be good for now.
 
#11 ·
I have broken bolts off in the bracket on a 97 Cadillac so I feel your pain.
Basically it requires you to replace the bracket. With pin calipers on various models of $500 and under rides with break problems I have come across rounded and siezed nuts.

I love Cadillacs and the number 1 reason I find them at lower cost is because they have been sitting in a spot somewhere for 5 more years with leaking lines.

When torching and freeze off/blaster does not work. Or you have a completely rounded nut. Out comes my box of thick walled 12 points just for stubborn bolts.

You round the nut ( or bolt)down to a circle and pound a 12 point slightly smaller then the nut onto the nut. You do not want the socket crooked but you may have to tilt it slightly at first to get the points to dig into the nuts surface. You are just trying to get a small amount to dig in. To little and your not going to grip to much and you will split the socket. A millimeter or two smaller then normal usually works. You want to use a impact here as a breaker bar tends to make the socket tip until it slips off. The trick works great for getting off locking lug nuts when the previous owner forgets to give you the key.

I have sheered the pin right in half and had one of those "no way" moments. If that happens remove the entire bracket and caliper. You can just replace both the caliper and bracket and replace them at this point. If you want to save on the cost and time of a new caliper and time to bleeding the brakes and do the below.
Remove the bracket bolts and gently pry the bracket and caliper unit off the rotor. Remove the rotor then install the bracket and caliper. Now cut the caliper bracket in half then cut it again so you can spin the bracket leaving a curved surface. Now you insert a pry bar into the curved surface and turn the caliper and one of three things will happen. The bolt will spin off the bracket (most of the time) or it will sheer off the bolt in the caliper. Or it will break the caliper. I broke one caliper in over a dozen times needing to do it.

If you sheer the bolts off with a few threads still in the caliper you can go back and use the socket trick as there is a considerable amount of threads no longer there to keep the thing attached.

If the bracket spins off you only have a few threads in the caliper and can spin on two nuts and get the bolt out that way.

If the caliper breaks well you rolled the dice and lost.




In most cases the caliper bracket is cheap and easy to find. Your 96 is around $20 and if the calipers are frozen or leaking with rounded nuts I would not hesitate to remove the line, plug it, then remove the bracket bolts, before prying the entire thing off the rotor and setting it in a bucket to drain.

This gives you a new bracket to work with and is just recommend if you find you just slammed your knuckles against the suspension kind of deal trying to get the nut off.

Now if you have a newer car with speed sensors and abs sensors attached to that bracket you might not want to go prying the thing out of there. But on most cars you can pry the caliper out without issue and just chalk the added cost to a less stressful repair in less time.





A quick note on hardware. I hate, hate, did I mention I hate? Old hardware. Bolts are cheap. Even grade 8 or 10 bolts are cheap. Specialty bolts are not cheap. But are usually in spots you don't want to revisit if they break. Breaking a bolt off in a head, block, manifold, caliper, etc can turn a weekend upgrade into a real pain.

Upgrade your hardware and clean out your threads before securing the thing. A dab of grease( rated for the temps) covering the first 10% of threads then wiped with a rag so just a skim layer you can almost not see is on there goes a long way to prevent bolts from sticking.

I replace speciality bolts( torqex male or female) when ever possible depending on what they are doing. If you have something that rotates like flywheel bolts don't mess around but the expensive recommended bolts. But with a bell housing to block bolts( jeep is a good reference) I am not going to use a male torqex bolt that I know will yield and twist when I can insert a higher rated bolt in there with more surface area holding the bell more secure.



Hope to see the hearse rolling smoke in the staging lanes at the strip someday. Cool ride.
 
#12 ·
Just as an update to this: Brakes have worked well so far except the fact that one of the pads was pretty tight when I put it in. I should have gone with what I was thinking and grinded it down little. Now the brakes groan a little on the driver's side. If I am slowing down from a faster speed, like 50mph and have to slow down quickly, I can hear and feel what I think is pulsation from the rotors being warped (I already knew this was the case it just seems amplified now). It also still squeaks a little, but its not a prolonged squeak its more like a cyclical squeak. And its only when I brake so I dont think its something different. Oh well.. it's a learning experience. I know I'm going for a complete brake job soon so I'll be putting in new rotors, calipers and other such things. She's almost 105k now and I dont think it's ever been done. Any tips on replacing those parts before I take the plunge are appreciated!
 
#13 ·
Thats my problem. Even though this hearse is built on a 96 cadillac fleetwood they are definitely not the same. I am not 100% familiar with this year car yet and I dont know which parts are commercial/heavy duty and which arent. I am also not familiar with swapping parts out from different cars. My concern is making it fit and function correctly. This hearse is nowhere near as heavy as my others. My 66 weighs around 8 thousand pounds and has drum brakes on all 4 wheels... try stoping that behemoth when someone pulls out in front of you! As they frequently do because they think all hearses are slow... lol It's very difficult to stop these sometimes depending on the situation so I have to leave a big space while driving, unfortunately people take that as an invitation to pull in front of me.

As far as brake upgrades, back in the day yes. They were fitted with commercial chassis brakes. One hearse I think the 67 or 68 had a master cylinder that was a one year commercial chassis only. Good luck finding that! Some of these parts can be pretty hard to find, so if I could outfit them with something that would work better for the application (like corvette brakes), I would. I dont plan on taking them to the cadillac grand nationals anyway so why not?
 
#14 ·
I know these are the stock brakes. This car has only been out of funeral service for a few years and I bought it from a friend of mine.. he didnt upgrade the brakes. And the funeral homes dont bother with that stuff. Pus the fact it was so badly seized when I went to do it.. I'm hesitant to do the upgrade because I feel like for example a 13 inch rotor will be much too large to properly function. It would be nice to be able to have one of the rotors in my hand just to see if it'll fit right. I have a parts store nearby that might help me out.
 
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#16 ·
I am not sure about the rim size. Tire size is 15 but I cant remember the rest of it off the top of my hear... load rating is 2000 pounds.

There isnt much of anything mentioned in the shop manual about commercial and non commercial stuff. The best info I have found is looking at parts numbers, sizes and such on rock auto lol... just seeing what parts are different. I do have a friend who's an encyclopedia of hearses but I dont think he knows a whole lot about this year..

The lt1 in the hearses were severely detuned. different heads, different cam.. all that ****. I would love to make a swap.. what i consider a REAL LT1.. but I would then be concerned about the additional torque and power and could the driveshaft and differential even handle it? It's definitely not something I am familiar with doing. I dont think I would buy a car for it. I would buy a crate motor though. Not until I did a bunch of upgrades and repairs though. Plus i have 3 other hearses that need a lot of work.

It would be something for waaaaay down the road. Next time I'm in the parts store I'll ask about the corvette rotors. What brand and stuff should I ask for?
 
#18 ·
I wish I was still in school we had access to alldata. I didnt like it much because it didnt go back far enough for my other 2 cadillacs lol.. The manual isnt specific about any parts or parts numbers really. Just shows pictures of what to do and stuff. I will have a look and see if I can find a GM parts catalog. I just dont know how else I will figure out if this stuff is going to fit besides having someone do it professionally for me. Seems like a lot o f unnecessary work tbh
 
#19 ·
Yes your pump is different. Mine doesnt have the 3rd hose on the back of it. There is no gasket on the thermostat housing, the thermostat itself acts as the gasket. It seals it.. When I took mine off that is what I found. I discovered that the reason it was leaking from the housing was because the thermostat's seal was hard as a rock and fattened much more than the new one. Hopefully all will be well. I managed to get the thing on, now I am waiting for the gaskets to cure before going back in and taking out the bolts to put sealant on them and torque them down. I'm going to wait a little longer than the recommended curing time since its kinda chilly out and it's also raining.
 
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