This is a 1994 960 wagon, I'm replacing the front brake pads.

I'm in the middle of the brake job, the caliper undone on the bottom bolt, the pads out, the piston pushed back, ready to put in the new pads. I'm trying to figure out HOW the new pads go in. There's a spring that can EITHER be compressed OR spread. I can't figure out how to do either one to fit the pads into the caliper. (I can't look at the other side brake to figure it out because I can only lift one tire at a time.)

New pads look like this:

http://www.ipdusa.com/uploads/images...lsize_7325.jpg

Old pads have the spring further spread out, but I can't figure out how it GETS spread, and where it locks into the caliper. I've tried just pressing the pads into the caliper (which would work if the spring then flattened and locked into place somehow) but the spring doesn't flatten and lock in, and I can't figure out how it is supposed to do that.

The outside of the caliper looks like this:

http://s174.photobucket.com/.../medi...00110.jpg.html

The inside of the metal bit in the slot in the middle of the caliper interacts with the springs on the pad, somehow.

All the instruction manuals just say to put the pad into the caliper. They don't say HOW I'm supposed to manipulate the springs to make this happen.

I have done my own brakes on numerous other vehicles (Ford, Datsun, Toyota, Dodge, Mercedes, etc.) over the past 40 years. But this one is driving me insane, and of course I can't drive anywhere to get assistance because my car is on the jack with one wheel off. :-(

 

Just press the pad into the caliper. It doesn't "lock" in, just provides pressure; just push down on the caliper and insert the top and bottom bolts.

 

This might help.

 

The problem is that the pads didn't "fit" with the spring in the neutral position, and it wasn't possible to just "press" them into place. What I ended up doing was setting them in place on the rotor, sliding the caliper down, the bottom caliper bolt hole was about 1 inch shy of lining up with the other bolt hole, and I took my 6" c-clamp and (gently) bashed on the back of the caliper to push it down into place, which (I hope) properly spread out the edges of the spring clips on the pads. Photos attached below show what the problem was.

 

Well, yeah, it does take some pressing down, the spring should be in "neutral" position. I have seen brake jobs where the springs were left popping out of one or the other end--it still worked but obviously not what you want.