Sticky Calipers

Anyone have any tricks to fixing some sticky calipers?

You could take it apart and clean it all up but by the time you do that you can buy a new one and not have to worry if it worked.

Thats what I was thinking too. It's on my 97 f150. Don't drive it much.

If it's stuck from sitting you can normally bust them loose. If it's sticking from time to time while you are driving I'd just swap it out. That's just me though.

Every time I took a sticky caliper apart it had rust in it. That can only cme from water in the brake fluid so now I just swap 'em out and flush the system.

f250 and 350 from 97 to 2001, have a bad habit of collapsing the inside of rubber brake lines after 150000 to 200000 miles. It can be hard to diagnose the line unless the wheel is still locked up(they tend to bleed of the pressure slowly if left to sit for a while) if it is locked up you can crack the rubber line,if the wheel releases than it's the line, if not it's a rusty piston or slide. If you find out it's a line and your going to open up the system anyway and can swing it, I'd do both sides with calipers and lines. Take it from someone who knows, if you don't you just sitting on a time bomb.

Never thought about moisture in the fluid. It's the second one in 8 years for the same reason. Like to fix, thinking about sale/ trade it. Only has 136000 on it.

My experience with the later model Fords is that they use that funky stainless liner between the anchor bracket and the pads. What happens, especially on vehicles not driven regularly, is condensation causes rusting between the dis-similar metals, this rust starts to expand, and ultimately pinches the pads tightly enough that they won't release in a million years. Take the pads out, clean all the junk out of there, polish it all up the best you can chipping out all the corruption, anti seize the anchor bracket, the stainless liner, and the tabs on the pads, and it should work good. Ford sent out a bulletin on this in the late 90's if I'm not mistaken, recommending taking the pads and anchors apart, cleaning, and reassembling to alleviate the problem.... I think the recommended interval was every 15,000 miles. I got Ford blue blood, but some of these brake systems are horrible, including the late silverado pickups- the guy who built those should have been forbidden to reproduce. Good luck.

Thanks,you are right those parts have always been rusty every time I have changed the brakes. This time when I replace tha caliper I was going to buy new hardware too.

Collapsed brakes lines was the problem on the sticky calipers.Thank for the info..