I hope you guys aren't getting tired of my adventure but it's not over yet.
With my new found motivation, I decided to get things ready for the new u-joint coming tomorrow. I wanted to get the driveshaft separated from yoke so I would have to only reassemble. So again, I stuck block of wood between the rear brake lever and foot peg to lock rear brakes and hold driveshaft while I unbolted the saddles and ABS rings. After getting the first one unbolted, remove block, twist driveshaft some more, put block back in and unbolt another. So finally all 4 bolts are done and pulled and I separate the u-joint from the yoke.
But I didn't feel like I had spent enough time in the garage so I pulled the right wheel to inspect the brakes. Luckily I found the procedure in the owners manual or I probably would gave removed the whole caliper like most other brakes get done.
The directions seemed simple enough, basically remove the cotter key from slider pin, slide pin out, remove brakes... I tried to inspect the brakes first but its pretty hard to get my big head in the wheel well directly above the caliper and then look down. It did seem like the pads had worn down quite a bit so luckily, I pulled out the package of brake pads I ordered about 2 years ago just in case.
So I was able to finally get the cotter key out on front slider but the slider wasn't budging. I tried a pair of pliers, wiggling the slider and trying to push it out but it was frozen. I then sprayed down the slider with brake cleaner so this pretty much guaranteed that I was now going to have to use the new pads. Slider still frozen... I backed off for a bit to figure this out. As I was standing on the side, I happened to see the block of wood still wedged between foot brake and drivers peg. Doh!!! I removed that and went back to the slider and would you believe that it slid right out? Of course it did. There still was enough brake pad in my opinion to have gone a bit further before changing. So after doing the front set in rear caliper, I pulled the rear set and they came out real easy. Now the rear set was worn down significantly more and needed to be changed. Not sure why the front set wasn't as worn as the rear set but I felt better knowing. I took both sliders and sprayed them down real good and used a wire brush on them to make sure they were clean and smooth. Reassembly went just fine. I was able to use the shaft of a screwdriver between the pistons and rotor to push them back in. After the initial self induced trouble, I would have to say the most difficult thing was trying to get that cotter key back in. It's very tiny and needs to be put back in behind the inside pad which doesn't move much and the hole the key goes in really isn't visible. A little trial and error and I finally got it. Right side done and I moved over to the left side. The left was pretty uneventful as I now had a better understanding of how to do it. I discovered same thing as the right, front set still had some life in them but rear set was ready for a change. Not sure how these calipers work. None of the pistons were stuck and moved easily but obviously the rear set gets used more??? I had taken many trips hauling my Aspen camper over the years so I wasn't surprised to find the brakes needed to be changed. I though they would have needed to be done before this but I'm glad I thought ahead and had the replacements on hand.
I just find it strange that one set in a caliper could be worn down more than a second set. But this might partially explain why there are 4 separate brake pads on each caliper. And these are also fixed calipers and don't move unlike most disc brakes I'm used to. Each pad get its own dedicated piston so there are outside and inside pistons so no need for the caliper to move at all. Very interesting.