HELP QUICK! Closed brakes

I've painted my wheel, and whilst trying to slip the brake disk into the caliper, I find that the pads have shut together tight..

How can I separate them?

(I have Enhanced Rider Training on Wednesday, and I don't fancy cancelling! Help, please!)

[yorkie_chris]

Shove them back with your thumbs, you may need to open bleed nipple to do this. If you can't do it by thumbs with the bleed nipple open your calipers need cleaning out IMO

Thin screw driver then proceed onto bigger screw drivers

HTH

Holdup- Still recommend bleeding? Or is it avoidable?

[yorkie_chris]

If you must do that then a) wipe the grease off the screwdriver first and b) be gentle otherwise you'll gouge gret chunks out of the pad

Originally Posted by allantheboss

Holdup- Still recommend bleeding? Or is it avoidable?

Listen to YC over me, he knows faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more, what i said is just how i would go about it

or i've found going between the caliper and back of the pad not contacting the pistons can work too. Can you remove the shims to give you that bit more room as a temporary fix?

Brake pad retractors? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Draper-Brake-C...13c353ffff92e5

Apparently if you use the above draw some fliud out of the reservoir to leave space for that forced out of the caliper.

Stick a thin metal thingy between them and wiggle? If you do this it might be worth opening the bleed nipple, though this will mean rebleeding the bleeding things.

Try to not force things and destroy your pads, but maybe a new set of pads will speed things up if you do wreck 'em. Good luck!

[yorkie_chris]

Whatever you do make sure the volume in the res. is still adequate. Usual mistake is to top res. up then a month later fit new pads and wonder why they are locked solid!

[squirrel_hunter]

Carternd those pad retractors look interesting. Have you or anyone else used them?

Allan how comfortable are you bleeding the brakes if you have to?