Great write up, unfortunately I'm having the same problem as others before me and I will be walking to autozone tomorrow to pick up a caliper winding kit. My piston came further out and will not retract, instead it just spins and spins. I pushed so hard on it that I was separating the skin on my palm, and still nothing. And because it came out further I can't even put the old worn down pads back in and drive somewhere.
Here's hoping autozone has them in and that nobody at my work misses me tomorrow morning in the time it takes me to fix this...

Edit: Go to Autozone and rent the caliper winder for free. It makes quick work of this. I spent two hours trying to do it without the right tools, and after renting it, it took me about 30 minutes for both rear brakes, from jacking up the car to setting it down. I'm now happy to have my baby back and no rear brake grinding!

 

When a friend and I did our brakes on the same day we found the best way was to have one hold onto the caliper pushing towards the one winding the piston (and ensuring not to stretch the brake lines) while the other used both hands on a pair of needle nosed pliers and pushed towards the caliper thereby doubling the force applied to the piston to . I swear to god his took 5 minutes but did wind themselves back into place, but we felt like we were making 0 progress for the longest time .

 

For those having trouble finding a piston tool, here's one option. I picked this kit up at Harbor Freight for ~ $35 and it worked great. The "M" size tool fits our piston and the clamping capability allows you to exert some force against the piston to help drive it in (you want to use the driving tool marked RIGHT as it turns clockwise). This is the same type of tool called out in the Helm's manual (they refer to it as a "Spanner wrench style caliper piston installer") for servicing the rear brakes.



Oh, and if you're swapping rotors then note that the caliper mounting bracket bolts get torqued to 85 ft-lbs (don't forget to loc-tite them too).

 

sub'd

 

Thanks to this write up I was able to grease the slider pins about 2K ago - all appeared to be well at the time, other than the dry pins.

Just Saturday I noticed a groove in the right rear rotor, so I jacked the car up - the groove is maybe 1/8" wide, about as deep, and although the inboard pad has a little less material than the outboard, it is not crazy - say maybe 80% outboard, 70% inboard.

Think I am falling victim to that lack of crud cleaning groove that Metroplex mentions ?

It seems really weird that it would do this now, at 11,700 , and after I greased the sliders ...

I gotta go in next Friday for a second tire rotation - burn the fronts evenly , you know , and will ask about this then.

Until then - well, you know what they say about curiosity & the cat.

TIA !

Britt

 

I Just used two allen wrenches...stuck them in the holes...crossed them up and twisted em in...took a few minutes..

 

The pictures are gone, can we get them back?

 

ah good ole image deleted yup

 

Yeah, someone messed up my rear brakes. They put the pads on wrong, at least one side. He had the piston side pad with the spring on one side and not the other. I need pics to see what they should look like.

 

today i replaced my rear pads and followed these instructions.. i found that my piston wouldnt go back in either no matter how much i turned it.. but i figured out a trick

you turn it counter clockwise till you cant anymore.. then when you turn it clockwise it will go right in in less than 5 turns.. its pretty weird but it works.. hope this helps people..

 

can anyone else confirm this? i'm having trouble doing my brakes right now. did pass side and the piston wouldnt compress...i would it all the way out counter clck wise and it go stock and woulnt go back in. i kept messing with it till it went back in, i'm having the same problem on the driver side now.

 

Koo beanz

 

Make sure your hand brake is not up. I recall running into a problem because of the handbreak just don't recall if it was this same one. Nonetheless hand break shud be released when servicing rear breaks.

 

for the price (check CED) you would be well advisesdto replace the black sliding pin rubber boots when you service/change rear brake pads. The entire caliper is supported in part by these boots.

Much of the grooving I have seen in rear LNF rotors can be attributed to pad material. I run LNF brakes with stock replacement pads, and have zero problems. It is clear to me from what I have seen, that from 2008-2009 there were some rear pads from the factory that had uneven sintered metallic pad particles...caused grooving. I am guessing, also from what I have seen, the 2010 models cars this issue was fixed.

 

yeah, it released. i've done brakes on all of my cars since i was 18, just never ran into this problem before.

 

I did my rear brakes today. Glad I found this guide. I used the universal cube caliper piston tool that you can buy from Autozone. One of the sides that has four contact points will work, if you only use two of the points. At first, I had trouble compressing the piston like a lot of others mentioned. I found a Youtube video where a guy showed how to do it. It wasn't a Cobalt, but most of the rear disk brakes cars are similar. Anyway, you have to use a consider amount of pressure at the same time you turn the tool clockwise. I pressed the back of the caliper against the coil spring and pushed hard as I turned the caliper. It worked for me. If you are still having trouble, Autozone has a loaner caliper piston compressor kit that will work (as someone else mentioned earlier).

 

Pics or it didn't happen.





No, seriously, somebody please post pics or I will probably not be able to do this!
I'm not very mechanically inclined, and pics and vids always help!!!

 

lol this sucks no pictures wtf, I am right now working on the rear brakes and need help... if anyone is on here can you help does the pad with the spring go on the front or back of the rotor? Also on the pads there are lil studs do those go inside the lil groves on the caliper itself or those just for brake grease?

 

this is a great thread...i changed my pads 2 years ago and they are still good. Hawk ceramic ftw

 

I looked for this the other day, and the wifey got pissed 'cuz I was on the web ...

At any rate, the spring must go on the inner as Voila ! Here is a Pic, compliments of Cobalt SS !


HTH -


Britt

 

Thank you very much torquesster

 

any chance to update pictures?

 

im doing this tomorrow..already have all the stuff to do it

 

Got stuck doing rear brakes today but it was all good when I made a new friend because of it.

Thanks Aaron-SS-TC for helping me out and being a great neighbor!

And, by the way, your ride is one fast car...my wife is still trying to wipe the grin off my face!


The big hiccup was...I'll give you two guesses but the 1st one don't count.....yea, compressing the caliper pistons. My brakes were so low that the boot was fully extended and hard to push in. His answer was to twist with the needle-nose pliers (I had been doing that) but secret ingredient was to put the handle of a long screwdriver against the piston and tap the other end with a hammer until it popped in. Forget the expensive compressing tool, that was the holy grail and it was smooth sailing from there. We just did the pads so rotors will be forthcoming but she's runnin' like a top and stoppin' on a dime now.

Hope this advice can help anyone who is preparing to do this job....

 

That "expensive" tool that is used to do the job correctly is actually quite inexpensive to borrow from an Autozone type store. They make you put like $60 down on deposit when you take it out of the store. But, that gets refunded to you when you bring it back in good condition. I wouldn't recommend hammering anything on your hydraulic system.