Got an old 96/97 starlet and the front left brake is seizing on, checked the caliper and everything looks fine, floating part of the caliper is moving ok, piston moves free enough but once the brake pedal is pressed the front wheel is dragging. Any help gratefully accepted.

Pads moving inside caliper ok?

Very worn pads often lead to the piston travelling a long way, making it more susceptible to rocking over slightly and jamming in place. Very worn is subjective and can change if your piston gets worn in one spot from it. Could try rotating the piston through 90 degrees while it's open to access.

Pads seem ok plenty of life left in them, have got a new set so for the sake of £15 I might just put them in, top tip with rotating the piston had forgotten about that one. Hopefully it'll be dry tomorrow and I'll have a good look.

Good luck, keep us posted 🙂 Check the piston seal too (or rather the skirt, not the seal) in case it has a split and has let gack in – often thats hard to see without extending the piston right out a way.

I assume you've had both calipers off & checked the pistons & sliders are moving freely? So if, when was the fluid last flushed through? Could be some muck stuck in the brake pipe somewhere, MC piston & seals all ok?

Probably not a bad thing it will help keep the acceleration in check when it takes off on its own accord.

from my own experience i found it to be a little bit of corrosion on the piston.
if your pads are worn the pistons move out further and if there is a bit of corrosion on them – that's enough to have them rubbing on the disc.
just rub off the corrosion with a bit of emery.

A new caliper would be fairly cheap I reckon.

Fluid flushed last year when a rear brake pipe was replaced, might be worth bleeding the fronts as not sure if they did the full system. sliders move fine, think I'll just check everything tomorrow in the daylight.
Thanks for the suggestions

Had this on a old Beetle I had. It was the flexy hose pipe that connects the rigid pipe to the caliper. It had broke down inside and would only let fluid through under force ie when pushing brake on and would not let the fluid return.
So the way to test it is push brake on and if it goes stiff/dragging then open bleed screw on caliper. If wheel the moves the fluid can not return back up pipe.
Flexy pipes are cheap in most cases.

what ballsit said, had this before christmass on the MG.

£10 brake hose

£300 (trashed hub bearings, disks and pads) bill because I drove the 20 miles home (there was still 'some' pad left, and car still drove fine, just a little noisy.

Flexy hozes only last circa. 5 years, goodrich and the like last almost indefinately.

Hadn't thought of that, I've seen flexi's split but not brake down inside, you learn something everyday.

blatstits comment is very possible (I've had it on mine) but not overly probable I'd say, it's be my last port of call, but it would be a port of call.

Flexy hozes only last circa. 5 years

Tell that to the originals that lasted 18 years on my toyota 🙂 And just FYI the OEM replacements were nearly £40 per corner, goodrich replacement braided hoses were only £50 for a set.

Tell that to the originals that lasted 18 years on my toyota

dealers will change them at 5 years, the service manual will say change them at 5 years, driving around with a known brake fault just makes you seem like a tit.

So basically the first thing to check is the brake caliper piston, If they seize like this on my old VW I used to use a mix of brake fluid and copper grease under the rubber seal to lubricate the piston and keep it from seizing up again, get the piston out slightly further than normal (make sure you don't pop it out!!!) clean the piston, lubricate it all and push it back into place, pop it back out again, re lubricate and push back in again. it should be fine. Don't use WD40 on the piston as its can make the seals swell and will totally wreck the seals.

If its not that then its onto the flexible hose.

Oh well, jacked the car up at the weekendm checked all the sliders in the calliper and they were fine so I thought I'd take the mount off to give it a good clean and the bottom mounting bolt sheared off 🙁 so it's off to the garage, hope they can remove the bolt and fit a new one.

PePPeR – WD40 is rubber-safe, you can soak a seal in it for months and see no changes in elasticity or size. I'd use silicone spray though, as it's a better lube for rubber.