HELP! can't get rear pads on

is there any tricks to getting rear pads/rotors on? i'v compressed the piston as far as it will go but its still not enough. :mad: :cry: :confused:

make sure your parking brake is off. With some cars you sometimes need a special tool for the rear brakes because of the parking brake, I don't know if ours needs it, but I've done mine without it a few times. But the parking brake could be enough to keep it from going on.

i've disconnected the parking brake cable. now it looks like there is a plate that the pads sit on then a rubber boot then a shim of some sort that i belive is for the parking brake but my question is should the plate and shim be really close when the piston is compressed?

Please post "brake" topics in "Suspension, Chassis and Brakes". I'll move it there.

Thank you.

Uh, I haven't done rear disk brakes on a car yet but I've heard you have to turn the piston as you push it back into the caliper. The old c-clamp trick doesn't work because of the twisting action requiered.

has anybody done the rears with/without turning the piston?

Hey 97z28/m6;

Did the front/rear pads on my '01 a few months ago. The c-clamp worked just fine all around. No rotating the piston in my case. Wasn't a Z. Don't know if this will help you?

Good luck with your problem.

Steve

98+ have different brakes so maybe those are easier i don't know but these just won't fit and yes i checked to make sure they are the same as what came off .

Swapped the rear pads out on my 94. Used a C-clamp, no twisting of the pistons required.

Cool, that's what I want to hear. I gotta do mine pretty soon. The guys I heard it from don't have F-bods but I wasn't sure if it was something to do with the parking brakes on the rear calipers and if it applied to all cars.

Used a C-clamp, no twisting of the pistons required.thats what i thought but mine won't go on. :mad:

I had this same problem when I did my 94 TA. I did new pads and rotors though at the same time. So I didnt know what the problem was at all. I tried different rotors from somewhere else. Same problem. Then I thought well its gotta be the pads so I got different ones. Same sh1t. The clearance needed to install this stuff was like very minute. What I ended up doing after much aggravation was take a sheet of sandpaper, course grit, on a flat surface, and started removing some material from the brake pads. A little off each pad, and they fit. My only guess is incorrect processing tolerances from **** manufacturers of aftermarket parts. I didnt have any braking problems from doing this until recently, but thats what happens when you go from 130 mph to 60 mph in a hearbeat because some jackass decided he was going to pass his grandma in front of him when hes only doing 65. Floridians,......bunch of stupid son of a b1tches.

well i'm about 1/4 inch too much so your saying i need to sand that much off?andi'm doing new pads and rotors. this is its first brake job and its not going well :cry:

Just finished mine up about an hour ago, are you sure you have pushed the pads back all the way. When you push them down you also have to push them under the caliper bracket. When I slide them over my rotor there was no play at all. It was a very tight fight.

Also I didnt even use a c clamp I used my hands, I also had the rubber hoses off so maybe that was why I was able to do it, but my dad said to just use my hands and it worked fine.

By saying thers a 1/4 of an inch it doesnt sound like you have pushed both pads under the bracket I was talking about.

well i'm about 1/4 inch too much so your saying i need to sand that much off?andi'm doing new pads and rotors. this is its first brake job and its not going well :cry:

no way,.....i was only about 1/16" too tight if that. I didnt shave off 1/4". are you saying 1/4" on both pads, or total? either way it sounds like a lot. open your master cylinder, maybe u got too much fluid now and it cant bleed out anymore? it has to go somewhere and if yer master is full and sealed tight it will blow off or you wont get the piston all the way in. other than that, check your parts and make sure they gave u the right parts.

I had the same problem when i did mine and was off about the same. I know exactly what your problem is.

When you undid the top caliper bolt the one where there is a bolt and then an another bolt and a black rubber bushing and you have to hold one side while you loosen the other side. That is what you need to be looking at.

What i had to do was take the PUSH that toward the car so that the rubber bushing was almost completely covering the 2nd bolt. It's kind of tricky but you should be able to do it. Infact i think i used the c clamp pushed it back.

Where the black bushing looking this is were it slides in and out (away and towards the car). Your old pads were smaller so it was pushed out farther away from the car to close the distance so you dont have alot of open space and now that you have your new pads they are thicker and it needs to be slided back in (towards the car) so that there is enough room for the pad on the outside.

If that doesn't help just reply back and i'll try to discribe it a little better.

That should give you enough room to clear the rotor.

i'll try that this weekend. thanks all who replyed. :bow:

Its also possible that one or both of your pistons are rusted and wont go any further back than they currently are. That was what happened to me when I tried to do my rear brakes. I was real pissed cuz I knew how to do brakes and I couldnt do it, finally got sick of trying to get them on there and put the old stuff back on and took it up to my mechanic friend and he figured out that one of my pistons was rusted and wouldnt go in any farther, we pulled it out and sanded off all the rust, and it worked just fine after that. Prolly not the problem in your case, but its possible.