toneekay

So I was able to change out my front rotors/pads pretty easily until I got to the rear passenger side top caliper bracket bolt. I have tried all of the below:

- Using all of my man strength (I have a lot)
- I've tried soaking the bolt/area with PB Blaster for a few hours
- I've tried using a hammer on a 6 point box end wrench
- I've tried torching the bolt/area with fire

I'm pretty much at a lost. Whoever did the last brake job tightened the hell out of this damn bolt. I had this same issue around 15-20K miles ago as well except the rotors were still good so I just swapped out the pads. However now, the car has been in my possession about 40k miles without the rear rotors being replaced and it's looking like it's about that time. EDIT: At this point, I'm not sure if the rear rotors have ever been replaced after 80K miles.

Any advice on getting the bolt off other that drilling a hole through it? The car originally was an "up North" car, but there's no rust anywhere on it, so that can be eliminated out of the equation.

peasodos

iTrader: (1)

How many miles on the car?

I have close to 91k miles with stock front and rear rotors, they are in great shape. I can see having to change the front rotors if you do a lot of heavy braking and built up a significant edge on the rotor, but rears seem unnecessary.
I guess if your changing rear pads every 15-20k miles you must be doing a lot of heavy braking or you have some cheap pads.

warmdye

Use an Impact wrench if there is room.

toneekay

I'm right at 80k right now. The fronts I just just change both rotor/pads out of habit. The rears, I agree, don't have to change much at all, however the surface is getting pretty low (past the lip around the rotor) and the rotor vents look pretty rusty, so that's why I've been wanting to replace them. Pad life is around 50% after about 20k miles and they're OEM.

6speediroc

I'd go 6 pt short socket on a breaker bar with a 4ft pipe and stand/jump on it. It'll break or come out.

toneekay

The limited space only allows me to use a smaller impact which have failed to break the bolt.


Caliper bolt is on the inside of the wheel well so no standing, and being I'm limited by jack stands, I also don't have the space for a breaker bar. Sometime later this week, I may go to a friends shop to get the car on the lift so I can stand under it and pull with all my might with a BABB.

Mind you all this is on the rear passenger side so the bolt has to spin clockwise looking at the rotor from the outside of the car.

peasodos

iTrader: (1)

The shops impact gun should break it loose, probably stronger than the one you have.

toneekay

Yeah, I'm almost at the point of just leaving it in someone else's hands to get it off/deal with it, but wanted to try everything I could first since I like to wrench on all my cars myself.

peasodos

iTrader: (1)

Sometimes better let them do it because without the right tools you might end up stripping/chewing up edges of the bolt, which would be a worse position than your in now.

6speediroc

Turn the steering wheel to the side you're working on so you can get the breaker bar on it. Also gives you way more room to do the brakes.

Just saw its the rear..so this won't work..

er34

Make sure you are turning counter-clockwise - it can happen to the best of us when you are working backwards and disoriented.

toneekay

Lol I made sure. The bottom caliper bolt came out, so I just followed the direction for unbolting for the top bolt.

er34

If the bottom bolt came out, could you try tapping the bottom side of the caliper towards the side? Maybe that will help break loose any crud that may be bonding the top bolt?

UDel

I have never had to change my rotors and keep my cars past 100K miles but I am pretty easy on my brakes. Unless you need to change them I wouldn't.

As far as getting a stubborn caliper bolt off, I have been there, on my GS430 the passenger front was one so tight I could not get it to budge with hammering, PB blaster, heat so I got mad and gave it my all, I am pretty strong and snapped the bolt head right off, I was really mad, I thought now I have to try to get a hunk of metal out with nothing to grab and is locked in which may be impossible but then for some reason I tried moving the caliper up and it went fully up, I was puzzled and was able to just push the rest of the broken bolt out because no threads were locking it in. I wish they would just design the calipers where you can just slide the pads in like they did for the rears, makes it so much easier. I also snapped the head off a socket wrench trying to get a transmission drain bolt loose because it was one of those moronic designs that only had a square cut out in the center of a circular fastner/bolt and a socket head was the only thing I could get in there, again I put too much pressure, luckily they were able to get the piece out at Pepboys.

You have tried just about everything, only other thing I can think of is to get a long extender connection for your socket wrench that pushes it out past the tire well area so you can use a breaker bar or something to give you more leverage but you could also run the risk of shearing the bolt head off like I did. I would just let a shop use a impact gun to get it loose and them to worry about it if they screw something up. I still don't understand why they have to hyper tighten lug nuts, caliper bolts, oil filters, etc where they are almost impossible to unscrew.

toneekay

Yup. This is where I'm at with it... I've already started calling up a few places to see how much they'll charge to change out rear rotors/pads since my buddies shop is backed up and he doesn't have any available lifts for me to get my car up there.

The only reason why I want to change out the rotors is the fact that this car was from up north and I don't think the rear rotors were ever changed since I purchased the car used a while back. None of the suspension components are rusted, however the vents on the rotors look like complete crap.