Rear brakes dragging. Should I rebuild the calipers?
 

2000 Boxster S, 130k mi. The rear brakes have been intermittently dragging since before I owned the car. They get very hot, smell like burning brakes, and have worn the rotors pretty bad. I've got all of the parts on hand to replace all 4 rotors, all pads, braided stainless steel hoses, and replace/bleed the fluid.

Should I hold off on the work and order rebuild kits for the calipers? Or should I install what I have and hope it addresses the problem? I guess I'm asking, how likely is it to be a caliper seal over contaminated fluid/air in the system/collapsing rubber hoses?

Thanks,

Jeff

Since you will be replacing the hoses, I would remove the calipers and the pistons for a deep cleaning and install new seals, since it seems that the pistons are sticking, check the condition of the pistons as you may have to replace some of them if they have excessive (pitting?) ..you will know after you clean them :p

I had a hell of a time finding the inner seals. I found plenty of sources for the dust covers but all were pretty expensive. I ended up finding another thread on here recommending Centrics 143.37009 (Front) and 143.37013 (Rear) and I found them on eBay for $80 and that's the seals for all 4 calipers. I'll report back if these seals fit and are of good quality because that's way cheaper than Porsche sources. At least the rear calipers seem to be the same as a whole bunch of other vehicles (VW, Mercedes, Audi, Volvo, etc).

This is done and seems to be resolved. I don’t recommend the Centrics kits I mentioned below. Half of the dust boots were wrong by like .5 mm and all of the bleeder screws were wrong. I kept the old bleeders and had to order some OE Brembo dust boots. The inner seals seem fine but don’t bother with the Centrics kits even though they’re much cheaper.

I did the braided SS lines too but I could freely blow through the rubber lines they replaced so I don’t think that had anything to do with the fix. She’s got 4 new rotors and all new pads and no more cooked brake odor every time I stop now.

Congratulations! How was the condition of the caliper pistons?

They seemed fine with no scoring or anything so I reused them.