Newbie 306 Estate owner

[JackWolfe]

Hi all, 

Last month I brought a pretty beaten up 2.0 Diesel Hdi Meridian estate. Primarily because it was cheap but I'm starting to fall in love with this car. I'm new to car mechanics but I want to learn to maintain and fix the car myself so as to avoid the nasty money grabbing mechanics as I've previously been royaly ripped off, haven't we all?! 
When I brought it it had a short MOT on it with an ABS light on and a constant handbrake light on. I'm proud to say I got my hands dirty and replaced an ABS sensor, topped up my fluids and changed my rear brake pads. This may seem a small thing to some of you more experienced folk but it was a big deal to me. Yesterday it passed it's MOT!! Very happy indeed. 
I joined this forum because I understand there'll be a wealth of knowledge to be shared and I really don't think this will be the last 306 I own, and I also had an advisory I'd like to ask for advice on. 
My back right brakes are binding. As I'm a complete novice I'm not entirely sure what this means, nor how to fix it. Any advice would be much appreciated

I'm hoping to do the car up for as little money as possible and as I'm a new driver my mods can't affect my insurance so it'll be real low key and probably just asthetics. I have quite a few bumps and dents, one major dent on my drivers door. I reckon this will be a long lasting and fun hobby. When I get the time I'll stick some photos up.

Thanks for reading

[MY95]

Welcome Jack
Car sounds like a bit of a project but well worth it, these cars are great to drive and pretty cheap to run.
Sure most if not all 306 owners have had binding brakes at some point, could be many things. Usually sliders, pistons, or warped discs etc. I found replacing the callipers with refurbed ones did the trick! Then just keep on top of them by greasing them up and moving them about every 6 months or so.
A stage 1 is pretty impressive on one of these and makes the car so much better to drive!
Get some photos up.
If you need anything else give me a shout
Matt

[jjwilde69]

I got a cheap one and decided to keep it too. Great car to drive. Ended up doing cambelt. Best car I've had for fuel cost. It's worth working on it. 😀

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Niall]

Welcome

Binding rear brakes are quite common. The callipers will need either rebuilding or replacing. Personally given your level of skill, i would go for replacements. Rebuilding callipers can be quite tricky and obviously you dont really want to be messing with brakes unless you really know what you're doing

When removing them from the car, try and soak the bleed nipples and line unions for a few days before hand. They seize up and can be a right pain to remove and the nipples just snap for fun.

[jjwilde69]

Yeah not worth the hassle to rebuild. Prob just want cleaning and greasing though. Brand new ones 55 quid ish.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

[Frosty]

Welcome along, these days the 306s are pretty cheap to pick up and i think you can't beat them for value for money.

As others have said about the brake binding caliper, sliders etc. The other thing would be to check the cables aren't sticking, be worth just popping the cable out the caliper to see if that makes any difference.

As Matt said a stage 1 map does make a big difference to these so that's worth looking into

[Niall]

Chances are mate the pistons are seized so greasing and cleaning wont help.

[Poodle]

Welcome!

Don't sack off the caliper just yet, few things to check first. Check the sliders are free and well lubed and the handbrake levers go all the way back to the stop, both very common faults. Failing that, did you clean the pad carrier surfaces and copper slip the ears of the pads when you put them in? Often see enthusiast-maintained cars with dry pads and sliders, caked carriers and over-adjusted handbrake cables, shouldn't take long to check them over and could save you £50+ a side.