Where is the best place to buy a front offside caliper for a Mk 3 and how much should I expect to pay?
Zed
what wrong with the one you have got, if seized I would try a good clean worked for mine.
Steve K
They are only slightly seized on. What did you use for cleaning them?
Front caliper seal kit £8.36 MX5 parts.
Clamp the brake hose and remove the caliper, with a compressor blow the piston out, if it wont blow out use a pair of pipe grips and twist the piston out.
Polish the corrosion off the piston with very fine or worn emery tape, then use a flap wheel in a Dremmel and polish the inside of the cylinder taking special care where the seal seats which is in the groove of the cylinder.
Now the hardest part is reassembling the caliper and use copious 'red’brake grease.
I did mine 18 months ago and it cost me about £10.36p
There is a very good video somewhere which i will try and find and post it up.
This can be a waste of time but it is your choice it may work it may not.
You need two people one to slowley push the brake pedal down and an other to watch the piston come out the caliper.
At a minimum you need a seal kit to replace the seal that will have gone from being very eleastic and pulling the piston back into the caliper after you take your foot off the brake to being more plastic in its properties and leaving the piston out against the pads.
The two sticking Mk3 front calipers I have stripped, have had rusty pistons which also would need replaced, so I would suggest a replacement caliper would be the best option.
Also yes the brake fluid was regulary flushed, that tends to reduce the piston rusting issue but it did not.
Third issue is the bleed nipple seized or is it free to be unscrewed.
Safetymatch you are assuming the OP has a compressor and it is so easy to injure fingers using one to get the piston out of the caliper if someone has not shown you how to do it under supervision the first time.
Just to add if you do decide to do it yourself wrap PTFE tape around the threaded part of the bleed nipple as it helps to stop air getting in the system while bleeding.
Ooops, sorry, if you use compressed air put a block of wood or something in front of the piston, and keep your fingers clear, this is not a racist comment but you must have heard the saying ‘black mans pinch’.
The trouble with refurbing is your’e committed without a backout plan.
Buy the seals, pop the cylnder out, find that it’s totally shot and now you’re off the road until you get a new caliper.
However, the diference in price between a new caliper and a seal kit is quite substantail, so worth the risk in my opinion.
Having said that, my MX5 is a second car so wouldn’t leave me stranded.
Incidentally, regarding popping out the cylinder with a compressor, i popped a slave cylinder out with our works compressor.
The piston went flaying about 20 yards across the workshop.
An alternative, but a bit messy would be to pump the piston out.
With the cylinder out of the car, but still connected to the flexi hose, have someone slowly pump the brake pedal.
Probably worth checking that you can get the bleed nipple out before you start, last thing you want is to refurb the seals and then snap the bleed nipple when it comes to bleeding the system.
To answer your second question, I had a front calliper replaced with a refurbished unit by a local garage at a cost of around £210.00 recently.
I probably could have saved money by shopping around / doing it myself but it was seized solid and my priority was getting back on the road ASAP.
Regards
Darryl
I wouldn’t be able to do a rebuild myself for health reasons but I found this one on E-Bay. Does it come with a warning?
Yes I have used that brand of caliper on my MK3 and bought it from that company.
Just do it.
I have just had a seized front nearside caliper replaced, it cost £93 but a new one one is very much more. Fitting was on top of course.