MK4 Golf Rear brake piston woes

Soldato
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so fitting new discs and pads today to my mk4 gti 1.8t...

old pads and calipers came off with a little persuasion as the offside was down to the metal. trouble is now that the piston is to far out for me to get the piston winding tool in there to widn the piston back in....any ideas guys.

also, the nearside piston doesnt seem to want to wind in far enough to get it over the new pads... about 5mm short...

what say you ocuk motorists?

round 2 tomorrow :D
 
I know nowt about mechanics but I do know they're prone for rear calipers seizing/dying...

Euro Car Parts often have pagid refurbed ones which look brand new for like 50 quid a go, I just got those on mine when I had a 1.8t Golf :)
 
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it can be done without the tool, youll have to look into that

what wind tool do you have? your tool must be massive, ive never not been able to get mine into a calliper
 
what wind tool do you have? your tool must be massive, ive never not been able to get mine into a calliper

Agreed, I've never come across this before.

If the piston won't wind back in all the way it may be due to corrosion on the piston. Pull back the rubber boot and take a look.
 
Screwdriver or a set of grips should sort you out for the piston that's too far our - with the one that wont go in any further are you sure the windback tool isn't spinning rather than putting pressure on the piston as well as turning? Again get some grips in there and apply a bit if pressure manually - best way to do this is take the disc off and fix the caliper back on so you've something to work against

My caliper tool doesn't quite fit the gaps on the civics pistons so it can end up slipping if not used with a bit of savvy
 
Eh? With the disc off, the tool fits into the caliper no problem, with the plate that sits against the caliper as you screw.

Tried again yesterday, took the disc off and bolted caliper back up on the carrier. Piston turns but doesn't protrude back into the caliper :( Couldn't give any more force unless I hammered it! :(

Looks like it's off to the garage... bugger :(

peeled the rubber boot back and piston is perfectly smooth and greased.
 
If the piston extends too far out it can come off it's threads, sounds like this may have happened, one of my rears actually jammed out and i couldn't wind it back in, ended up buying two new rear calipers in the end.
 
I feared that, figured that the one piston had extended too far out and has gone past the seal... ?

New calipers (Pagid) from Euro Car Parts are about £100 each. Not sure how much the VW ones are direct from VW.
 
IIRC they actually come off the piston thread and are a total pain to get back on, i actually bent my windback tool in the end!

I went with the Pagid calipers from ECP, great quality items, remanufactured to a very high quality, cost something like £70 for each rear.
 
you have to push it down and turn it at the same time, it's pretty easy if there are two of you, one pushes down with some sort of suitable pushy tool and the other winds with vice grips or the like
 
Try the rewind tool, but without the backing plate that normally presses against the caliper, just the disk that sits in the piston. It`ll give you more clearance, but you`ll have to push the piston by hand as you turn the tool.

I run the same setup on my Golf and when the pads are to the metal, I have the same issue. Once you push it back a little, you can slide the plate in and they go back as usual.
 
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