alright, I was changing my rotors/pads today and ran into a major problem. As I was installing the passenger side caliper, the lower bolt will NOT go in! It starts to go in then as you screw it in it starts to go on an angle and wont' go in any further. As it is, it could only make about 5 turns then it was stuck. I didn't watn to take the chance of driving it like that, so I used all of the strength I could to turn it. I broke a socket in fact trying to turn it! anyway, the farthest I could get it was so that there was only a 1/16" gap between the end of the bolt and the caliper. Is this going to cause any major problems? Is it safe to drive?


another slight problem is that the brake pedal is MUSH after changing the rotors/pads. It goes down nearly to the floor before teh brakes even begin to stop the car.

I'm not sure about the bolts but the mushy feeling generally means you need to bleed your brakes.

Sounds like the threads are stripped. You need to pull the bolt out and re-tap the hole, be sure and keep the tap straight. Yes you have to bleed the brake after a pad install.

alright, I got the bolt fixed, and bled the brakes this morning and they're still acting the same, but somewhat better. What the brakes feel like to me is very similar to what a bad master cylinder feels like. The pedal has to travel a distance farther than normal before the brakes start to work. If pressed really hard, the brakes work as good as before, but the initial brake strength is down by far. Could it be the brand of rotors/pads I used? I have the Domestic Performance (RSM Racing) slotted rotors and Satisfied PRO ceramic brake pads. The brakes just don't feel right. (in comparision to how they felt before.. they just feel really weak initially.) If it is the master cylinder I don't understand why it would just now start acting up this badly just after the brakes were changed.

did you have anything go bad during the install besides the bolt. i know that if you dont bleed them correctly, you can get air in the layers of the hoses, and then they are junk.

You need to bleed the rear passenger first (farthest away from the master cylinder) then the drivers rear, followed by the front passenger and finally the drivers front.
You may have to do this several times and be sure and have a hose comming off the bleed valve into a brake fluid container that is 3/4 full as not to pull in air while someone pumps the brakes.

Just a thought....is it possible the brakes haven't been broken in long enough? I know after doing brake jobs on some vehicles, depending on which pads we use, it can take quite a while for them to seat properly....and until they do, they're complete mush.

Just a thought. Good luck.

Just a few thoughts...

Sounds like air in the system....

Now with ABS a few extra precautions are in order...
Prior to pressing the piston back into the caliper
open the bleeder at the caliper, forcing the entraped
fluid out the bleeder and not back through the system.

ABS valves are rather sensitive to high pressure back
feed, and easily clog up with the cruddy fluid in the caliper.

A hose from the nipple to a jar of fluid helps to keep the air
out of the operation, but it'* usually a bleed suituation.

There are several pressure bleeders that feed backward
from the caliper to the master cyl.... Guess how we found
out about GM abs valves.... and with new fluid and soft lines.

Wish I 'd known about opening the bleeder valve before compressing the piston back into the caliper. Just did complete fronts this weekend, had to do quick job because they were vibrating real bad, anyways, they were mushy for two pumps of pedal, little soft until about 200 miles, I now have normal pedal. I did have traction control light and abs light come on a couple of times, but it started prior to brake job. Seems ok now. Any ideas!!!!!! :o