Anyone here have experience replacing caliper pistons? More specifically, does anyone have any tips/tricks/suggestions/voodoo for getting the dust jacket around the piston, seated in the caliper, and the piston inserted through the square cut seal? . Any one of these tasks (dust jacket around piston, jacket into caliper, piston into caliper) isn't so bad on it's own, but accomplishing all three...together...correctly... Please someone prove to me that it isn't a unicorn?

Also, the circular clip that only appears to hold the dust jackets of the rears-- am I right in that it is to be seated--like the dust jacket--down in the opening and over the jacket? Almost hidden from view by the lip of the opening?

I'm prepping parts from an '04 donor and figured I'd start with what I've got and upgrade when and where I can. I'm told that with Hawk HPS pads the '04's 2-piston/1-piston calipers are more than sufficient. That, coupled with the fact that one of the front caliper's dust jackets got torn, and I thought I'd try my hand at rebuilding calipers. I figure if I use them they'll look and work better, and if I don't they're worth more to the next person cleaned, painted, and rebuilt.

I haven't even ordered my kit yet and already I'm learning a lot; when I went into the auto parts store to find grease for the rebuild and explained to the clerk that I was rebuilding calipers he actually said "Wow. No one does that.". Then, a mechanic friend said that the go-to practice in professional garages is to order new calipers over troubleshooting. He told me that by the time you've found and fixed the problem on a caliper, the garage could order, sell, and install the replacement parts twice.

By the time I've built the caliper, I'm pretty sure you could mine the ore and cast the molds for new parts.

Thanks in advance.

Bill