When it was time to do the brakes on my 1998 Escort, and I pulled the wheels off, I was shocked to find a brake setup that I had never seen before. There were springs and pins in the place of bolts, and I felt a little overwhelmed at first. Once I started working on it, I found that this setup, though unusual, was no harder to work on than a traditional brake setup.
A set of pins secure the pads, and a set of thin-wire springs in the shapes of a "W" and "M" hold the pins in place and the pads separated. I started by unhooking the "W" spring from the hole on top of the inner brake pad and the hole on the end of the upper brake pad-retaining pin, then I unhooked the "M" spring from the outer brake pad and the lower pad-retaining pin. I then pulled the pad-retaining pins from the caliper, and pulled the pads from the hole on the top of the caliper. I also removed the small shims from inside the caliper and saved them for reuse.
When I reinstalled the caliper, I tightened the bolts to between 36 and 43 foot-pounds. I then applied a thin coating of disc brake grease to the mounting flats on the caliper for the pad shims, and reinstalled the shims onto their flats on the caliper. I then transferred the shim from the old inner brake pad to the new one, then slid both new brake pads into the caliper. To lock the pads in place, I loosely held the "W" and "M" springs in place, and slid the pad-retaining pins through the holes in the calipers and pads, so the curve in the each spring wrapped around its respective pin. Then I twisted the pins until their holes for the "M" and "W" springs faced upward. To lock it all in place, I hooked the "W" spring ends through the hole in the top of the pad and the hole in the upper pad-retaining pin, and I hooked the "M" spring ends through the hole in the outer brake pad and the lower pad-retaining pin. When I installed the wheels, I tightened the lug nuts to between 73 and 99 foot-pounds, in a crisscross pattern.
