Caliper Piston Cracked wide open

ginandtonic said:

Update: swapped out the caliper, bled the line on the new caliper side and took it out for a run and I was no longer able to slowly sink my foot to the floor so..... success! Yesterday when I took it for a test drive it was raining so unfortunately couldn't detect any leaks, but this morning when I went out the inside of the rim and tire was wet, along with a puddle of fluid on the driveway. It was coming right out of the piston, kinda as expected. While I had all my tools out along with the brake bleed vacuum pump tool, I decided just to bleed the whole system only to be met with a rear driverside bleeder screwed that snapped off completely when I was trying to loosen it off, even with WD40 sitting on it for a few hours. So, the systems good right now and the internal portion of the bleeder screw didn't loosen off, but it's looking like my best course of action here may be to just replace the other 3 calipers since this piece of junk continues to break things.

Been an overwhelming year of expenses at the mechanic unfortunately, so once this is taken care of I have another few grand to sink into repairs and then I'll be getting rid of it ASAP. No vehicle out there should require 10k+/year in repairs, and I'm that guy that drives well below the speed limit, avoids bumps, reroutes himself to the smoother roads, and follows the Ram maintenance schedule to a T. Sometimes you just get a lemon! Bummed out is an understatement today, though.

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Jeepwalker said:

Bleeder snapped off....

Yep, Canada...(here too), that always makes for a bad day. Nice looking truck though!

Mechanical work has gotten VERY expensive lately. Shop rates have gone up. Lot of techs are parts-replacers ...which costs more and sometimes ends up actually taking LONGER to fix some problems. Vehicles/Trucks have gotten more complex too, which another factor. Some of the engineering 'aids' to eek out that last mile per gallon of fuel economy or driver safety aids or convenience electronics, just adds more layers of stuff to fail. And it ain't cheap to fix ususally.

Talking about expense, my dad just dropped over a grand into a shop which installed a brand new A/C compressor on his car when all it really needed was a $39 clutch assembly (seized bearing ..but not compressor). I was about to order one for him from the internet but then he told me he took it in....and I knew they would sock it to him (and the shop didn't disappoint!). That was a fairly straight forward clutch replacement. Car didn't have that many miles/KM's on it.

Another buddy just got a $4k estimate for a bunch of fairly small Volvo suspension replacement items a few days ago. He's going to DIY most of them. He's got the tools and know-how fortunately.

How many miles on your Tk? Maybe after looking at new tk prices, you'll be inclined to keep it a bit longer. OTOH, 2014 is right in there where there were cam/lifter, ABS & EPS issues...each of which can cost a bundle to resolve. Which in the old days were ever issues at all....

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Jeepwalker said:

"My guess is some tech in the past took a pry bar or C-clamp to push the piston in (to gain enough clearance for brand new pads), and pried on the edge and that's what cracked it. I would bet money on it."

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turbo2000 said:

You need to get a scan tool and bleed the ABS system…

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Hardracer said:

[QUOTE="Jeepwalker,
"My guess is some tech in the past took a pry bar or C-clamp to push the piston in (to gain enough clearance for brand new pads), and pried on the edge and that's what cracked it. I would bet money on it."

That was exactly my intial thought on mine as well when I was doing pads,There was a ding in that outer metal ring you spoke of.I pulled that ring off and saw a couple cracks....then said the same thing as OP.."great now I gotta fix that too".I tore it all open after it was on the bench and found the worst of it....truck stopped fine prior to that.
As for the pedal fade,ill have to learn from what others write on the subject.

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turbo2000 said:

You need to get a scan tool and bleed the ABS system…

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Jeepwalker said:

Bleeding the air out of an ABS valve block is basically cycling the valves and pump. Then afterwards a guy has to re-bleed the brakes to remove any air downstream of the ABS system. It's helpful with scan tool. But it's possible to cycle the abs w/o a tool by getting up some speed & slamming the brakes in a large (secure) empty gravel parking lot a couple times. Then re-bleed as per normal.

That's not a recommendation by me, it's just information what some other owners have done. There's how-to videos on Y/T.

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Hardracer said:

[QUOTE="Jeepwalker,
"My guess is some tech in the past took a pry bar or C-clamp to push the piston in (to gain enough clearance for brand new pads), and pried on the edge and that's what cracked it. I would bet money on it."

That was exactly my intial thought on mine as well when I was doing pads,There was a ding in that outer metal ring you spoke of.I pulled that ring off and saw a couple cracks....then said the same thing as OP.."great now I gotta fix that too".I tore it all open after it was on the bench and found the worst of it....truck stopped fine prior to that.
As for the pedal fade,ill have to learn from what others write on the subject.

Click to expand...