2005 Outback: I may have messed up my brake system pretty good- please help

[benja87]

Howdy folks.

 

I am a delivery driver and use my 2005 Outback for work. It has about 200,000 miles. I have been having problems with my front left (driver side) brake caliper and I need to replace the bracket (won't slide); however, I had been just replacing and chewing through brake pads in the mean time.

 

I started hearing a scraping noise so I once again replaced my front left pads; however, the noised didn't stop after I went into work.

 

It turns out that the problem was actually my rear-left pads (I didn't have time to look at them as I was rushing before work). As I was pulling out of the restaurant, I heard a metal object drop out and hit the ground, which turned out to be the remains of one of my rear-left brake pads. I was driving down the road and had to brake hard because of a dumb driver. Suddenly, a few minutes later I had no brake pressure.

 

I limped through my deliveries and back home by pushing all the way down on the brake and getting a little bit of pressure (along with an intense grinding sound). I know I should have just parked the car and immediately ceased operation in order to minimize damage; however, we were very busy and I had old deliveries in my car and in the heat of the moment I decided to just get it back home.

 

I got back and realized I was leaking brake fluid- heavily- from my rear-left caliper. I parked the car in the back of the restaurant and left it there for a couple days. Then I topped off the brake fluid in order to get it home (no grinding sound this time, I think the caliper stopped working).

 

Finally, I took everything off today and inspected the caliper. The piston won't budge. I realize I need to bleed my brakes; however, I was reading about how pushing the brakes all the way to the floor on a high mileage master cylinder can push gunk through it and damage the seal. I did this more than a few times during this ordeal in order to get the car to stop without any brake pressure.

 

I really don't want to damage anything more than I already have, and I was wondering what I should do in order to diagnose what needs fixed and the best way to go about fixing it.

 

Thanks a bunch!

 

-Ben

[jvick94]

Good place to start is by replacing the offending calipers and brackets (should be able to get together) and anything else like the rotor that was probably chewed up when that pad fell out. Your front driver side issue may just be a slide pin stuck which can be fixed without replacing the whole bracket or caliper.

 

While you are in there make sure you grease all the caliper pins all the way around so what was happening on the drivers front doesn't happen elsewhere. Then flush and bleed everything and see what that gets you.