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Advice please, 245 master cylinder and brake calipers

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Old Jun 26th, 2022, 12:06   #1
Peter222
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Default Advice please, 245 master cylinder and brake calipers

Hi all,

My 1979 245 has a brake problem and I'm not sure how to troubleshoot it. On the brake tester, the two front brakes are fine but at the rear, one brake is lightly locked on, the other brake does nothing at all.

My mechanic would like to replace the master cylinder and the two rear calipers with new units, which would be a bit pricey. Is it an easy job to remove the old ones and clean them up with new seals and o-rings?

Since the master cylinder does work well on the front brakes, is it likely to be faulty? Perhaps I could just do the rear calipers.

How would I know what would be the correct part, should I decide on new replacements? There seem to be many different models for my car. e.g. ABS, Ridex, Stark, Bosch and more.

Many thanks to you experts for any pointers

Peter
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Old Jun 26th, 2022, 13:02   #2
Othen
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter222 View Post
Hi all,

My 1979 245 has a brake problem and I'm not sure how to troubleshoot it. On the brake tester, the two front brakes are fine but at the rear, one brake is lightly locked on, the other brake does nothing at all.

My mechanic would like to replace the master cylinder and the two rear calipers with new units, which would be a bit pricey. Is it an easy job to remove the old ones and clean them up with new seals and o-rings?

Since the master cylinder does work well on the front brakes, is it likely to be faulty? Perhaps I could just do the rear calipers.

How would I know what would be the correct part, should I decide on new replacements? There seem to be many different models for my car. e.g. ABS, Ridex, Stark, Bosch and more.

Many thanks to you experts for any pointers

Peter
Hi Peter,

If you are moderately competent with some tools then rebuilding your rear callipers would not be difficult, if they are too badly worn it may be quicker (and therefore cheaper if you pay someone else to do it) to buy some new ones.

This link will take you to Juular's 240 thread, about half way down the photos he tackles the front callipers - if you would be comfortable doing that level of work then read on:

https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showp...7&postcount=49

The rear callipers on your motor car are somewhat simpler than the front in that they will have only two (opposing) pistons - so half as many bits. It sounds like the pistons are seized so you will need some means of forcing them out - if only one is stuck you can do it on the car by clamping one of them then pumping the brakes to use the car's hydraulics to get the other moving. Otherwise you can use a compressor like Juular did (I think he covers renovation later on in the story).

I think what you need to do it take the callipers off (just two bolts) and see what is going on - probably the seized side first. After your reconnaissance you can decide whether to rebuild (cheap but time consuming) or replace (expensive but much easier).

I wonder why your mechanic wants to change the master cylinder? If they operate the front brakes properly then the fault can't be there. It would be a good idea to question him on that issue. It sounds like a made up job to me.

244/245 Volvos are pretty simple beasts - fixing this issue isn't hard and the parts are readily available if you are confident enough to have a go. If you had to pay a mechanic to do it then repairing the callipers would not be worth it - replacing them would be cheaper.

Good fortune,

Alan
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Last edited by Othen; Jun 26th, 2022 at 14:23. Reason: Spelling error.
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Old Jun 26th, 2022, 22:56   #3
Bugjam1999
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Hi,

Couple of things-

Personally I don’t think the time and cost required to rebuild calipers at home is worth it, but others have done so successfully and there’s no great secret to it. If one of the pistons is stuck you may have fun getting it out- as Othen suggested, it will be easier to use the car’s hydraulic system to do so.

I suggest you take a rear wheel off and have a good look at the seized caliper before deciding what to do- they may be past the point of being renovated anyway, a set I had on a previous car were so corroded that the metal surrounding and holding in the pad retaining pins was really thin.. so I scrapped them and bought a replacement set.

If you replace the calipers, your car will have either ate or girling calipers at the back, I suggest you buy girling ones as replacements as they’re far more common, which in turn means pads are a lot easier to get hold of. The mounting points on the car are identical for the two types of caliper so there’s no fitting issues.

The flexible rubber hoses for the brakes break down inside with age and can act as one way valves, since the front brakes are working fine that suggests both that the master cylinder is working ok and also suggests the rear hoses might be breaking down internally. The hoses are cheap, I’d replace all 6 on the car if there’s any suspicion.

As Othen says these cars are really very simple to work on, but beware that the end of the rear brake lines that go into the caliper just love to shear off, so soak them for a few days in penetrating oil and use a lot of heat to help free them off.

Cheers
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Old Jun 26th, 2022, 23:25   #4
classicswede
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I very much doubt the master cylinder has anything to do with the problem.

Rear calipers are a common issue. Just replacing the seals will not fix it and if paying for it to be done would work out more expensive than fitting new (without factoring doing the job twice)

New calipers are not expensive https://www.classicswede.org/shop/re...lliper-girling

I would also take a close look at the flexi pipes and if any doubt replace them
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Old Jun 27th, 2022, 07:07   #5
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Peter,

Re; classicswede's post above.

New calipers are only £45/side, which is a bit cheaper than I had expected. If you can fix the problem for £100 (with a bit of DOT4) in an hour or two then that would be a really sensible way to go. Take note of what Bugjam says about getting the hard brake line off, otherwise you will end up changing that as well.

For comparison: A rebuild kit like this one (just an example, it may not fit your brakes):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/283677957...3ABFBMtKSsuLRg

... is only £16 (against £90) plus another tenner's worth of DOT4. I have used this type of kit many times and as long as the old item isn't too corroded they work pretty well and should fix the problem. It will take you at least a day (maybe 2 of they are badly seized) to get the callipers apart, rebuilt and back on the motor car.

Your decision: it depends whether you value your time more than the £75 difference in price.

Good fortune,

Alan
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Old Jun 27th, 2022, 09:02   #6
Clifford Pope
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FWIW:

I've done this many times, and I usually find in pre-checking for the MOT that one or more of the rear pistons are stuck or sluggish.

My method

Jack up and remove wheel, remove springy cover exposing the pads, and make sure that you can lever each one back into the caliper. I use a G-clamp between the protruding pad and the end of the caliper body.

When you find one (there are 4 in total) that is stuck, pull the pad out and use a wedge lever of some sort between the disk and the piston. With a suitable lever you can force it to retract. Run a few drops of brake fluid round the edge.
You can apply considerable force here if necessary. I have never yet found a piston that would not move in the end, and never had any problem with damaging either disk or piston by doing this.
Push the piston right in, then pop a worn out pad (ie something thin) into the space, and apply the brakes to force the piston out again. This may need you to stand on the brake pedal, especially if the booster assistance is unavailable.
Inspect the caliper again, run a bit more brake fluid round, and lever the piston back in again. Go on repeating this as many times as it takes to free it up (put the spacer in to stop the piston coming out too far).

Then move on to the next piston/caliper.
As I say, I have never yet had to give up. ALL pistons free up in the end.

Points for extreme CAUTION if you really do want to remove a caliper.
There are only two bolts, but they are VERY tight and probably locked with adhesive too. It is very easy to round the heads of the bolts. I don't know what you do if it becomes impossible to extract a bolt. The nearest I have come to reaching that point is when I once had to hammer on an old socket that was too small and then use 2 yards of scaffold pipe to shift. It broke the socket lever first time.

Take extreme care to free off brake nipples very very carefully if you need to bleed the brakes. They snap off very easily. My infallible method is to run a few drops of brake fluid round, put a tight fitting ring spanner on the nipple, apply a small amount of force, AT THE SAME TIME hitting the nipple END_ON with a hammer with quite a lot of force. NOT sideways - it will snap off.
Apply more fluid, and work the nipple backwards and forwards to ease it out gradually.

Likewise be very careful undoing brake pipes. Hitting the union sideways on to squeeze the hexagon can work, if you can insert a very heavy block of steel or heavy hammer behind on the other side to avoid straining the pipe.
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Old Jun 27th, 2022, 21:18   #7
Juular
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Agree with everything said about having a go at rebuilding the calipers. It's not challenging if you can get the pistons out ok, and using the cars own hydraulics to do so is by far the easiest way.

Pulling the caliper off and gently operating the brakes will also tell you whether the pistons are stuck, and if the hydraulics are working at all.

The rear flexis are very easy to change providing you can dismantle the connections. Sometimes it's easier just to chop everything off and rebuild it with new unions and flares. There's plenty of brake line spare to do this without making things too tight back there.

Edit: it is also very simple to rebuild the existing master cylinder if you really need to. I'm going to say you don't since the front brakes work. The rebuild kits are only a few pounds and the hardest part of the job is bleeding the system, which requires a couple of goes round each corner, or use an ezibleed.

Last edited by Juular; Jun 27th, 2022 at 21:20.
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