I replaced the rear brakes on my 98 GT yesterday. The left rear was really worn, it was actually scraping metal in a small area (BTW, let me make the disclaimer that I just got the car last Friday, I would not let brakes on my car get that worn).

It was a pain to push the piston back into the caliper, but I got it to go. On the way to work today I could smell the brakes. Sure enough, when I got here I checked and the left rear was really hot.

So I think the piston is hanging and not going back into the caliper. How do I fix this?

 

replace the caliper would be the easiest and safest thing to do in my opinion.

When you worked on it, to get the piston back in, did you have a tool taht turns the piston in or did you try and push it in. On all rear disc brakes i've worked on, I always had to go to autozone and rent this tool kit that turns the piston in.

 

I pushed it in with a C-clamp. I saw in the service manual that you can get the special tool to turn it in, but pushing it in seemed to work fine as well. Maybe I messed it up by doing that.

This is the first Stang I've had that had rear discs, so they are a bit different than what I am used to working on.

 

Yeah you arent supposed to be able to push it in with a "C" clamp. I tried that and couldnt get mine to budge. Got the tool to turn it and it worked like a charm.

 

Not to sound mean, but you probably screwed up the piston by pushing it in. As Scott said the rear pistons are supposed to screw in, so my guess is that you stripped out something inside the caliper when you pushed it in. Dont feel bad though, you are far from the first person I have heard of doing this. Just replace the caliper.