I have an 09 Dyna with floating, 2 piston rear brake caliper. I tried to replace the worn brake pads but ran in to a problem. As I have done on my previous Sportster I pushed the brake pad in order to retract the brake pistons. Once it came time to put the new brake pads there was not enough room to get both pads in. Dunno what happened. Perhaps I did not get the second piston to retract as needed, but there just was not enough room to put both pads in. I'll take it to the shop and have them do it tomorrow... sigh...

 

You may need to remove some of the fluid from the reservoir. If that has been topped up at any time when the bike was serviced, when you tried to push the pistons back in, the fluid doesn't have enough room to go to. Could be as simple as that!

When you get your new pads in bleed the brakes to flush through new fluid, if it hasn't been changed recently.

 

Grbrown, it's not the fluid issue. I had the master cover off.

After asking around it seems the double piston brake calipers need to have both piston pushed back at the same rate. It's likely that I pushed the rear piston back more than the front and caused the front piston to stick out. Apparently I should be using a brake caliper spreader tool for the job. Now only if I can find a motorcycle brake caliper spreader...

 

You have my sympathies! My front calipers are both 6-piston and they don't ever play ball. Just had them serviced by the factory (Harrison) because of the same problem. With a total of a dozen of them there are bound to be problems. With my 4-pot rear I have a total of 16 pistons to slow me down!

 

Often the problem...I use the old pads and a piece of flat stock to hold the one set of pistons in place as I push in the other.

Just remember to clean the pistons real well before pushing them back in or they tend to hang up.

 

wow that's a lot of pistons Grbrown.

 

Somebody had to do it!

 

+1......the easiest and cheapest method!!