Brakes pulling to one side

Ive had a few cars with sticky calipers, have always removed the runners as you said, greased them up and refitted but yeh they do seem to go tighter when the grease is packed on. I think as long as there able to move itll be ok i would of thought. This has always fixed my caliper trouble.

As with pumping the pedal, thats fine the pison doesnt shoot out.. just slowly moves even without any resistance.

Just from experience ive had, seemed to have lots of dodgy calipers in my past!

Does any of the wheels get warmer than the others after a run?

Then again, pulling under braking can also be suspension related?

Without actually being there to feel, it does sound as if there is something wrong.

Try seeing what the pedal feels like when you take the pads out on the other side: I'm betting the piston does shoot out.

As to what can be wrong:

The flexible pipe may be blocked internally, this happened to me once, I couldn't get anything to come out of the bleed nipple at all.

There could be a flattened section of pipe feeding that wheel, due to offroad damage.

There could be corrosion inside the calliper. Remove piston and both seals. Clean the groove that the fluid seal fits into. Corrosion here causes the seal to grip the piston too tightly. You should replace the rubber seal, but if in good condition, it is your choice.

The sliders should slide easily, the resistance is caused by the rubber in the groove pinching the sliding sleeve: again clean out the groove. If they won't go back (like happened before) they have swelled up and could cause a problem.


The piston should go back with your fingers, but this is always difficult, as the slightest angle causes it to jam. (BTW, the pads are flat aren't they? if worn sloping there is a problem.)

My money is on the flexible hose.

Everything I've worked on ( ex - technician ) has had some resistance on the slider, even new. Kirkynut's bang on; the grease does create a bit of a vacuum / suction, you sometimes get a bit of a " pop " as the air gets forced through the grease. It's not a problem and shouldn't cause the calliper to stick as long as the movement is smooth, I've always used copper grease ( for 15 odd years ! ) to lube them and no problems. The rubbers themselves do naff all except keep the crud out; I've worked on motors so old they'd disintegrated and the sliders worked perfectly as the lubed part was protected in the calliper even with the uncovered part corroded and pitted. It does sound like yours were a bit stuck though, it shouldn't need forced or major effort to move them. The red grease, although technically correct, I've never used and only seen it on factory fresh motors in minimal ( a smear at best ) amounts. If it's virtually solid, I wouldn't be using it.

The pedal will be firmish with the pads out of one side, there's still pressure elsewhere in the brakelines and it's not like opening a bleed nipple, but I'd expect it to go to the floor or close to it. Could it have been stiff as pumped a few times already and lost vaccum at the servo ? Try starting it and doing it again, might be less stiff. The piston itself won't come out particularly fast, but it should move out smoothly.

Is the right hand side jamming on and not releasing / doing so slowly ? If it was, when the pressure is released on the left it could fire you to right side because of the uneven braking force. Unfortunately the same thing will happen if left hand is sticking off, process of elimination ! It could be a straight forward as the pads sticking in the calliper carrier, I normally sand off the paint from the edges of the pad where it contacts the calliper carrier and lube LIGHTLY with the copper grease ( it's high temparature and doesn't melt, even on a Jag XKR that's been caned ) on the edge and back of the pads. Done it since I worked for Renault as they'd jam their pads almost solid for no apparent reason and the minute difference scraping the paint off the pad and smoothing the contact edge of the pad / light lube prevented it.

If one pad is worn more than the other on the same side of the car, or not worn evenly, e.g. more at the top than bottom, something is stuck but it sounds like you've covered that already. I think i'd now be cleaning everything up, lubing it and making sure all moves then check the flexi hose as facade suggests; crack open the bleed nipple on the left hand front, check the pedal feel / amount of fluid compared to the same on the right. If less fluid / stiffer pedal then the flexi could well be u/s. Change it and try it again ( could possibly swap them side to side and check again, bit of a faff for a fairly low cost new hose though ) if still no better, the piston would be coming out but they can be a twat to get back in. The flexi's much easier ! I think you may notice a difference using something other than the red grease on the sliders though.

mlines wrote: Well,i have found out what the problem is, pictures will follow. However before that another quick question. When reassembling the caliper is it easier to fit the piston boot first and push the piston through it, or push the piston in first and the squeeze the boot into the gap?

Fit the piston boot first, then the piston.

i done this last weekend as my brakes were siezed solid. the pistons were badly pitted, quick clean up and they went back in and now work fine.

also on another note about the rubber seals on the sliders, i had them on yet my sliders siezed badly, i have had them off for about about 7 months now, i take them out now and again to cover in copper grease and they have been problem free ever since.

Glad you found the problem.

Well done on the write-up too.

Can I suggest something?

You once told me that the part numbers for the two metal sliders were different, even though they looked the same to me, so it must matter that they don't get mixed up. I didn't measure them, I just replaced the damaged rubber on mine.


Usually when I rebuild a calliper, I pump some fluid in to make sure the pistons are going to come out, and pump any seized ones right out whilst the brake pipe is still connected. Lucky that there is a nice hole to drift these out with on the Jimny.


If the pistons are pitted, and the pitting will go through the fluid seal when new pads are fitted they must be replaced. Sounds as though you caught yours in time.

Enjoy the rest of the job, if you don't have ABS, the brake bleeding is easy.
I made a big mistake doing mine. Although I only removed a front calliper, and didn't therefore need to bleed the rears, I broke rule #1 (DON'T MESS!) and thought I would bleed the rears, and flush the old brake fluid out. There is only 1 nipple, on the passenger side, and it came undone slightly, then seized solid with fluid leaking, and wouldn't move either way. Naturally, this was at 5:00 on a Saturday, and I needed the car on Monday.
With prayers to various Deities I forced the nipple out, expecting from the feel of it to remove all the threads from the casting with it, cleaned it up with a wire brush, then put it back in, bled the rears, and nipped it back up. It hasn't leaked or blown out-- yet