one of the neighborhood kids stopped by this afternoon with his 04 new body style 4 door short bed 5.4 powered 4X4 F-150.
he was complaining about "spongy" brakes and asked if i could look at it.
i felt the back rotors and knew it needed back brakes, so went to napa and picked up pads and rotors.
the driver side rear pads were seized in the bracket
i was able to pry the caliper off, and had to use a hammer to knock the pads off.
i put the new stainless sliders/shims on the bracket, and the pads would not go on.
the only way i could get the pads to fit was if i removed the upper slider/shim.
the passenger side fit fine with both slider/shims on the bracket.

anyone ever see this before?

a little history on the truck, his brother in law bought it new, and it was front/rear smashed at 6 months old with 1200 miles on it.
body shop replaced the nose and bed.
he got it 4 years ago with 21,000 miles on it after his brother in law passed away, it now has 113,000 miles on it.
he never had rear brakes put on it, and i really doubt his brother in law had them done either.

i am thinking the rear axle brake bracket was bent in the accident and the body shop never fixed it.

 

The pads should hook into the caliper carrier at the rear. A spring on the forward edge of the pad compresses as it's installed in the carrier. The caliper then slides over both.

 

i know this. i am talking about the stainless steel slider that goes over the cast caliper mount that the pads sit on.

 

I had the same problem with my Napa parts. Initially I reassembled without using the sliders. That caused a rattle I didn't like listening to, so I disassembled the calipers again and filed down the channel for the slider. It took a few tries but I got it to fit correctly. Now it all works the way it should