Gen I Rear Brake Issues

[sperold]

Before I take my winter car out of service, I have a close look at my brakes to make sure my sliders are still functioning well. It does not go back into service until mid December, and it usually is too uncomfortable to do much checking then. It turned out things were working well in that respect.

However, I noticed that my rear outer pads were wearing in a tapered pattern, thin at the top and thick at the bottom, to the point the top was near the rivet.

Anyone seen this before and have any thoughts? The vented rear rotors make the clamping housing quite wide, and I am wondering if that has something to do with it.

The second issue was when I spun the pistons in to give me the room to install new pads, I could not get the piston in far enough to load 2 new pads. I had to settle for re-installing one of the old pads on each side.

My question is - do the new pads have thicker friction material riveted to them that is greater than the original (Raybestos). That sounds really crazy now that I have wrote it! But I will say the material layer was very thick.

Has anyone found a method to get the piston in further than it wants to go by rotating the piston with what I would call a lot of force.
I even tried the C- clamp method when all else failed and, of course, it did nothing.
I unhooked the emergency cable and got the same result.

Any ideas, no matter how wild, would be appreciated.

 

[TimboSHO]

So are you saying the pins weren't frozen at all? Were the pads rusted to the bracket at all (did the just slide out, or did you have to pry them off)? I've seen this wear pads unevenly. Are you sure those are the right pads? I think the pads are different for the solid rotors, I'm not sure if they are thicker though. Have you tried getting another set of pads to see if they were the same thickness, maybe you got a defective box?

I wouldn't force the piston any more, as they will more often than not leak if too much force is applied.

Were they worn uneven on both sides?