Ugh. Did front pad slap and ripped a caliber boot on passenger side.

[Beamercub]

Did front pad slap and did the passenger side first, reusing the hardware I removed them and scrubbed and cleaned them, put them back on... And had a hard time getting the pads into the the housing.. Apparently I clipped the return spring into the outer pad hardware and that made the pad be off kilter.. Which made it difficult to slide the caliper back on having only removed the bottom bolt and flipped it up. After several attempts of trying to push the pistons back in further I didn't pay as much attention to the rubber boot as it was extended out further than the piston itself. Out of frustration I kicked the caliper back on and it slide right over the rotor. Then I moved onto the other side and repeated the process, this time not removing the hardware, just cleaning them in place. I had no problem sliding the caliper over the rotor on the drivers side. Another mistake i made was not opening the bleeder screw thinking that i had enough room in the reservoir, well I didn't and freaked out when i looked further in. It had dripped down on this and that... I cleaned up what i could with brake clean and then used a long curly q straw to suck out some more fluid. My thought process was, it was safe because of the curly straw i could see the fluid coming. *Did that 3x. Road tested the car, broke the pads in.. And i thought everything was good. Attempted to tell if i had a leak on the right side having kicked the caliper back on.. And I thought i did, but it was night time by this point and i looked crazy enough stopping pumping the brakes and backing up and looking on the ground for spots, which i was finding because my a/c was on. ugh. A couple days go by and i feel like i'm getting a little bit of drag. I go over the Subaru pad replacement instructions again, paying attention to the return spring and how it's supposed to be on the outer pad facing the direction of the rotor making contact on the caliper bracket. It wasn't, I had crushed it inbetween the pad and hardware when i kicked the caliper housing on. Took it apart and pulled the return spring back and now it is where it belongs, that is when i noticed the rubber boot being ripped on one of the pistons. It wasn't leaking i pushed it back around the piston and put it back together. Its been about 2 weeks and I haven't lost any fluid but i feel like i'm driving the titanic waiting to hit and iceberg and have a caliper piston start leaking. Having educated myself on caliper rebuilding via YouTube i'm confident I can do it, keeping it on the car. My question now is should I replace the piston itself or just keep it cheap and do the seals on that one affected piston. After all this was just supposed to be a $14 pad slap. Any thoughts, other than i'm out of my mind? Edited June 4, 2019 by Beamercub
Caliper, not Caliber.

[Brisvegas]

Any thoughts, other than i'm out of my mind?

 

:lol: Beamer, I'll have to be honest here, I have often thought you are out of your mind ..... but I do have to admire your perseverance

[Bill G.]

"Pad slap" ?