Master Cylinder Return Hole / Front Caliper Q

So I found my front brakes dragging a bit during my first few minute ride this year. As a result, I tried to do some quick free-them-up maintenance, as I didn't have the time as of yet to fully clean / rebuild everything.

I pulled off the left side caliper with no issues, cleaned up the visible stuff of all extra brake dust / road crud and moved to the right side. On this side, I had to tap the calipers with a mallet to remove, as they were pretty tight. I then cleaned up this side as well.

Before putting them back on, I compressed the right side caliper a bit with a c-clamp, to try to free it up a bit, and so I could get it back on. Once complete, I re-installed. Then back to the left, which was sill not re-attached. On this side, the piston was almost out of the caliper from my compression of the right side!

Is this normal? Or does this indicate something is plugged in that tiny tiny little hole in the master cylinder? I tried to poke and prod it, with the mc still filled, but every wire I've tried has been too flimsy, and just bends all over the place when I try to insert it.

The left side caliper seems to be fine, it does not drag after use. The issue is only on the right side. Can this be from a plugged hole or do I need to pull apart the calipers?

One last silly question; If I do the seal cleaning up process noted all over this site on the calipers, am I going to lose all of the brake fluid that's in there and have to re-fill from scratch?

Whew! Thanks!

 

that might be normal and your brakes are probably fine and they will probably fail when you need them the most
brake fluid's cheap

 

I'll tell ya what worked great on the small return hole.
On mine I used a .010 guitar string cut about 4 or 5 inches long.
Just enough so that it doesn't bend, and it did the job,
my fornt brakes have worked great ever since.
You can use the "B" or the small "E" string.
I use tens on my guitars so my small "E"
is .010 or ten thousands of an inch.

 

It that a subtle hint to bite the bullet there or what Polock?

Good idea taboo, I think I've got some old strings floating around, heck, that'll give me a good reason to re-string one of my guitars.