brake caliper question!!!!

[///digitalme]

so i was doing my brakes, since they started squeaking a lot, and i had always had brake problems, soft pedal, replaced the mc, brake lines, new fluid. the pads havent been replaced since i bought the car which was a year and 3 months....so i took the wheels off and noticed that the pads had about 80% of its life...i took the piston out and this is what i noticed on one of the front calipers....

my question is, do i need to replace the caliper???

what you see is rust.(sorry, took it with my phone)..

[KVF]

If it's not pitted, you should be able to clean it up with some steel wool. How's the piston look? If it's ok, clean everything up, put in new seals, and flush the old water retaining brake fluid out of your system.

[///digitalme]

Piston is fine looks good other than gunk but cleaned it and it's nice and smooth. I didn't know whether it was safe to sand or use wool. Thanks

[jlevie]

The bore of the caliper is not important. Only the condition of the groove for the seal and the piston matters. If the appearance of the bore bothers you, clean it up with a brake cylinder hose or sand paper.

[///digitalme]

Thanks for the quick response. The caliper seems to be working just my brakes are stiff awful im going to change the rotors again and see if it helps if not then imm try the booster, an then master cylinder.
I need to rebuild one more caliper and I'll see if it makes a difference.
I'm now leaning toward mc,and booster for my poor brakes

[jlevie]

What symptoms do you have?

[///digitalme]

Well it's really weird. My the brake pedal is soft feels loose and it's not hard as my other 2 e30s changed lines, brakes, rotors, master cylinder, and still feels the same. When I brake the pedal goes half way and then it start to brake. And if I press it hard I can feel the calipers skipping. I rebuilt them and still the same issue. Pedal is hard when the car is off. I'm leaning toward booster and possible an air leak somewhere? Anyone have ideas?

[jlevie]

Replace the master cylinder. A bad booster or a vacuum leak would result in hard brakes, but bad seals in the master will result in increased pedal travel and a soft pedal.

[///digitalme]

I'm replacing my brakes might aswell try a mc while the fluid is low. Thanks I'll update this weekend and see how it went.

[jlevie]

Bench bleed the master cylinder before installing it.