Thread: What is this bolt on the caliper for?

I was trying to figure out my sticking caliper/parking brake problem by going thru Hanes/Chilton and my mind when I decided to loosen it to see what happens. I found out the more you loosen it the tighter the parking brake sticks. So when I tightened it up to get the spring to spring back and release i heard a POP noise. I was like, "oh boy". But thing is the parking brake now is working and the caliper no longer sticks. The car rolls back in neutral w/o binding. What do you suspect happened.

poorly adjusted parking brake probably. I guess you just adjusted it 'better'

The adjustment is all under the brake lever. What i suspect happened is that the bearing inside the parking brake cam has broken apart. Inside there is a needle bearing and the pins can break out if it starts to rust or gets old. I bet you just dislodged the pin that was sticking to the cam and it is now free. If i were you i would rebuild or replace that caliper. Once you tear one down it is not that hard to make new again. But if you do take it apart i would expect to see the bearing shot on the parking brake lever.

This was a rebuilt caliper and it was bad and binding from the beginning. I replaced it because of the sticking parking brake and this one was intermittently doing the same. I kinda prefer the parking brake to work this way until I get all new rebuilds. This is still under the year warranty.