Hello Everyone,

I've done brakes before but I'm at a loss here. I got the calipers off but I can't compress the piston to insert the new pads. I read some of the posts here and I've tried using one of the old pads with 'C' clamps on each side. I tried opening the bleeder valve but it still won't compress. I put the Vice-Grips on one of the C clamps and broke a 6'' C clamp. I got an 8'' clamp and tried that but I don't want to put too much force into that or I'll wind up cracking the caliper. I see two dimples in the piston and tried screwing it in but that doesn't seem to work either.

As an aside I couldn't keep the emergency brake off (the only way seemed to be to leave the ignition on). So I removed the spring for the EB so I could get the caliper off.

I'm guessing it's something simple (stupid) that I'm missing.

Any (detailed) help would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Kevin

 

UPDATE - My hat is off to anyone who managed to do this job without a caliper piston retraction tool but I couldn't figure it out. I went to O'Reilly (Auto Parts) and borrowed the tool and it took all of 2 minutes.

I got it all back together including the EB spring but now I get no end of messages on the display: Low fluid (easy enough), Can't set the Parking Brake, Vehicle too low, ABS not working, CATS (???) not working, ....

I disconnected the battery for a few minutes and then reconnected it thinking that might reset the system but nothing except the same messages. Now I'm off to figure that out.

Anyone know how to reset the all the stuff?

Thanks,
Kevin