The Daihatsu has been confined to the garage for about 6 weeks due to a binding nearside caliper on the front, its just about pushable when stone cold, but after a mile or two of driving and its pretty bad. Since its road salt season I've not been particularly motivated to get it sorted since I'd not be driving it much anyway, but I finally extracted the digit and sent off my 'spare' set of calipers to Bigg Red last weekend for a refurb. I got this set as a bit of a bonus, having asked a guy breaking an M100 sirion for a pair of caliper carriers, and he posted me out both carriers and the calipers for £20. The downside is that they looked like they'd been stored in the sea since shortly after manufacture. I thought I had a 'before' picture but I can't find it so imagine a rusty cannonball and you're not far off.

I rang BR to explain they were a bit weathered and the guy at the end of the phone laughed and said most of them arrive like that and that they can sort the majority out, but that if they couldn't then they'd either dispose of them or post them back, and all I needed to do was pay a deposit of ten quid for inspection at this point. I duly paid my tenner and posted them off, and about 4 days later I got an email saying they were all sorted, good as new and could I please pay £160 and they'd post them back next day. As promised, they arrived here less than 24h later, looking well peng.

derusted, painted, new pistons, seals, bleed nipples - basically good as new. I'd also posted them the carriers, bolts and a few other bits, all of which came back good as new, along with new slider boots and copper washers. Very impressed. While they were away, I also got some new pads for the car too. The Rally 2 and Rally 4 originally came with Ferodo D2500 pads which are supposed to be really good and a big upgrade over the regular pads, however they are £160 a set (!) and also not actually certified for road use. This isn't a problem per se, but my pockets weren't deep enough for them and I could get some equally well-reviewed, and crucially road use certified 'predator' pads by Black Diamond for £25 delivered so I got them instead. They pitched up the next day.

So Saturday rolled around and I had some time to roll around under the car. I got it up onto the lift and weighted the boot down with ballast to get the nose to rise up, then whipped the front wheels off. I've been in here quite a bit, so nothing is too bad

A couple of 14mm bolts undid the sliders, which looked a bit grim, despite having only been regreased about 6 months ago. I think the bores of the current carriers are a bit scuddy, anyway, won't be a problem soon

They wiped clean OK and were re-greased with silicone No 2 (HUR HUR HUR) grease and put on one side. I lifted the caliper up on top of the disc and undid the carrier. The 2x 17mm bolts were done up mega tight, I don't recall doing them up that tight but it must have been me. Maybe I'm getting weaker? 

I took the disc off too since it gives more room to play around with everything, leaving a bare hub

I then undid the banjo bolt on the back of the caliper to free it from the car, and poked a foam ear plug into the void to stop too much brake fluid dripping out while I fiddled around with things. With the caliper free of the car, the cause of the seizure became apparent

yeah, thats not going to help is it? I set the caliper and carrier to one side after removing the old pads and the anti-squeal shim. I think I'll get these sent off for refurb too in due course so I have a spare set that are good to go if needed. The ones I took off the car are in loads better condition than the ones which were refurbed, so should be eminently refurb-able.

Next up was assembly of the new stuff on the workbench. Refurbished caliper and carrier ready to go

I put one of the new pads into the caliper and swapped the shims from the old carrier onto the new one so I could fit the pad to the carrier side, and fitted the anti-squeal shim to the back of the carrier-side pad. I used a bit of copper grease to keep it all in place for good measure.

Then it was a case of reassembly. Carrier on, then disc on, then retrieve pad and shims which fell off and refit them.

Then remove the ear plug, fit the refurbed banjo bolt with new copper washers and locate the little peg in the back of the caliper, slide the caliper onto the disc and then bolt the sliders in. Easy peasy. With it all connected up, I had my eldest daughter come and help with bleeding the brakes, which went fine. I bled through quite a bit of the old fluid to make sure it was relatively clean. She's pretty good at the 'pedal up - pedal down' carry on now which is a useful life lesson. She knows either how to bleed brakes herself, or has learned not to follow in her father's footsteps and make better life choices so you don't have to roll around on the floor of a garage on a saturday in February fixing your own rubbish cars. Anyway, I then repeated the procedure on the other side and got her back out to do the pedals bit of the bleeding and all was sorted.

Pleased with myself, I cleared an escape route from the garage and took the car for a drive to see how it behaved.

Then drove back home very carefully, jacked it up again on both sides and did the banjo bolts up PROPERLY this time, cleaned the brake fluid off the wheels, arches and front door, topped up the reservoir again, swore a bit, then took it for another run.

I'm pleased to say the brakes are a lot better now, no binding and they engage and release fine. The pedal still has quite a bit of travel but is now firm and the car pulls up smartly. I think I need to re-bleed the brakes a bit now its all done up fluid-tight (ahem) to see if that improves things some more.

Overall, pretty good work though. I think I do need to use it some more though, and I need to take it on the motorway to see if this has fixed the 70mph wheel wobble I had before. If its not this, then I will just have to put it down to the poly bushes being stiffer than the rubber ones and transmitting more road feel through to the rack, but I hope it might be sorted now.