Stock Brakes

[busdriver]

Howdy all,

I bought my 1991 Legacy L AWD a month ago and noticed that the front brakepads were about 1/4inch left. So I ordered stock OEM pads for the front and back. Fronts went in really quick, (I love disc brakes, I'm used to VW Bus Drum brakes...) The back ones though were of different pad wear width, the RL set was about 1/4 in thinner than the RR!! Any ideas what this might be?? I put the old ones in again just in case I have to do something else first. I would like to put the new ones in this sunday, tomorrow...
Also the Chiltons manual says something about diconnecting the e-brake?!? It's in the car right now but I thougth that's what it said. Is it necessary to do anything with the e-brake besides leave it not pulled??
A couple more questions..
I did not open any of the lines, even when I pushed the pistons back into the calipers, no leakage at the filler by the master cylinder.. I did open the cap up there though... When I took the soobster for a quick test drive the pedal went all the way to the floor once, then I pushed it a couple more times and it got tight like always... Is this normal with no open lines??

I've heard lots of talk about seating the pads...
Is this necessary, why??, what is the correct way??
Last one..
Do I have to have the engine running when I want to bleed the brakes?? I'm planning on exchanging the fluid since I don't know when it was last done. I'll be using Valvoline S...
Sorry for the length and THANK YOU!!!
Busdriver turned soobster cruiser...

[scottzg]

the one pedal push to the floor is normal. The fluid has to refill the calipers after you pushed them in.

the pad that is new looking prolly has a sticky caliper, or a kink in the line. Might be worth turning it in for a rebuilt caliper, or maybe your messing with it freed it.

I bleed the lines with the engine off, but there is a specific order to bleed them due to the 'double diagonal' brake wiring. IIRC its fl,rr,fr,lr, but i could be mistaken.

You seat the pads because they need to have the same grooves as the rotors to have a good surface area coverage on the rotor. Some pads will overheat at a lower temperature the first time you really heat them as well. Going up to 60 and then giving a good hard stop to 0 about 5 times does the trick.

You only have to leave the ebrake off if you intend to move the rotor.

Congradulations on your purchase and getting away from a VW.
8)

[Jonathan]

Congradulations on your purchase and getting away from a VW. Actually -in case you aren't aware- one of the more popular swaps is to replace a mid 80ies blown VW bus water-cooled boxer motor (that costs an arm & a leg to rebuild) with the pre-OBD II diagnostics Subsaru 2.2 litre motor. These swaps while fairly involved, offer more power and better fuel economy, and (IMHO) better reliability.