- My model of MX-5 is: __NC 3.5
- I’m based near: __Bath
- I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: __Caliper rebuild
Just spent a very therapeutic weekend refurbishing the rear calipers. One of them was sticking but I thought I might as well do both. Not having done this sort of thing before it was actually quite straightforward- thanks to the forum. A quick degrease, wire brush then a soaking in Eva-Rust got rid of all the corrosion. Frentech supplied an excellent rebuild kit and the paint was Hammerite. I guess I could have just bought a pair of new aftermarket ones from MX5 Parts but I wanted to learn how to do it. Here’s the result. Quite pleased to be honest.
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I mean Evapo-Rust !
Good on ya !! Looks like a swell job 
They look great, a good job well done 
Don’t really want to put them back on the car - they’ll get mucky but it’s either that or not stopping.
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Very nice well done. They look brand new. 
Well done for resisting the temptation to do them in red.
I did all four calipers red on a 2nd gen turquoise Micra once (yes, it had discs all round - ABS-equipped cars did). In my defence, I was young.
Micra, that’s brave. Turquoise, even braver!
Well done, looks great.
This is a really great result, should be proud of that.
I saw your rebuild post and it helped with figuring out the adjusters in the caliper, cheers!
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I love seeing old things made new in this manner - well done @CBRDEANO and @Lakkabay! There’s no telling how many people will be inspired to have a go themselves when they see work like this. Bravo.
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Looks good.
Problem is that I find that I don’t trust garages that much these days. For example, I had already refurbished one of my front calipers but didn’t have time to fit it so popped it in to my local independent for have it fitted. They managed to scratch the newly painted caliper and also didn’t use the correct grease on the sliders. When it went in for it’s annual service & MOT, I asked for just an oil change service but when I came back and they had replaced the spark plugs and were about to replace the K&N air filter until I stopped them. The young mechanic was probably just being over enthusiastic but I had replaced the iridium plugs only the month. Fair play to them, they refunded me the extra for the ‘full’ service and fished my plugs out of the bin. However the new ones they put in were not only non-iridium ones but were plastered in copperslip and were torqued up to within an inch of their lives. So now I am seriously considering just having the MOT each year and doing everything else myself. I’ve already changed the coolant, gear box & diff fluids, have fixed the rust on the underside of the boot lip, replaced the battery and have now worked my way to the brakes. Might as well do the engine oil and filter too. If I don’t know how to do it I have the forum (invaluable) and YouTube! I know not eveyone has the space / time to work on their cars but I keep going back to the old adage ‘If you want a job done properly, do it yourself’. The MX5 isn’t a complicated car.
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Nobody cares about your car as much as you do. It’s just a job to a mechanic, one of hundreds of cars that pass through their hands. In my opinion there are some really good mechanics out there but they’re let down by so many others. This is why I try to so as many jobs on the car myself as I possibly can.
Edit: same goes for trades across the board nowadays, I’m not just singling out mechanics
1 Like