Front brake pad won't come out
Thread Starter
Advanced
Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 67
Likes: 55
From: Taylorville Illinois
Front brake pad won't come out
Started changing Front brakes on my 2014 Z51 from originals. I had to tap outer pad pretty well to get it to release and saw tape/dried glue? on metal plate the goes against pistons. Can not get the inner pad to budge. When searcing forums saw others had this problem and used a 4inch putty knife between pad and pistons.. Don't want to damage pistons so is there a better way to get pad out.. Never had this problem before. Thanks for any info or links.
Tech Contributor
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 5,692
Likes: 1,451
Started changing Front brakes on my 2014 Z51 from originals. I had to tap outer pad pretty well to get it to release and saw tape/dried glue? on metal plate the goes against pistons. Can not get the inner pad to budge. When searcing forums saw others had this problem and used a 4inch putty knife between pad and pistons.. Don't want to damage pistons so is there a better way to get pad out.. Never had this problem before. Thanks for any info or links.
Safety Car
Joined: Jul 2018
Posts: 4,303
Likes: 2,055
From: Margate, FL
I think the OEM pads have a rubber shim - it gets hot and melts, thus sticking to the caliper pistons (like glue). Be careful if you are trying to get this melted stuff off as the pistons also have a rubber dust boot and you don't want to damage that.
I remember mine were sticky and hard to remove. I think I used a flat blade screwdriver pushed into the hole for the pins to get enough leverage to work the pads free. Once off I could see the rubber shims were all bunched up, so no wonder they were stuck. Don't forget: with the front end up you can turn the steering wheel to a different angle, this way you can get a better look at the problem.
I remember mine were sticky and hard to remove. I think I used a flat blade screwdriver pushed into the hole for the pins to get enough leverage to work the pads free. Once off I could see the rubber shims were all bunched up, so no wonder they were stuck. Don't forget: with the front end up you can turn the steering wheel to a different angle, this way you can get a better look at the problem.
Last edited by JMII; Feb 18, 2020 at 09:28 AM.
