GTV6 rear caliper blowout - help

["Steve Hoffins" <Steve_Hoffins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had a somewhat strange thing happen to my GTV6 yesterday.  I got home
from work and had it parked outside while I did some work on my wife's car.
When I got back in to move it into the garage, the brake pedal hit the
floor.  No pressure at all.  I opened the hood, empty resevior !!!!  I
looked underneath the transaxle and there was a 12" puddle of brake fluid.
It appears that the passenger side rear caliper blew out a seal or
something, the entire inboard side of the caliper is soaked with fluid.  I
just installed a new Master Cylinder 6 weeks ago and the brakes were
operating perfectly until now.  Why did this happen so suddenly ???  Could
this have happened on the track ???  Scary !!!!  has anyone ever had such a
rapid failure ??  My experience with brakes is that they begin to stick, or
hangup, not explode.  The only other explanation I can formulate is that
the seal in this caliper began to leak, and gradually drained my resevior
to the point where I began sucking air.  Just feeling lucky it happened in
my driveway.  The car was driven 4 hours earlier with no symptoms.

Moving forward, I need to fix it.  What is the lists opinion on rebuilding
the caliper.  Can it be done, should it be done, etc.  Am I better off
replacing the caliper?   It was midnight, so I didn't have time to inspect
the situation closer.  Anyone with a good working used caliper that would
save me some time???

Steve Hoffins

'83 GTV6
'91 Spider Veloce
'95 VW Eurovan camper

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