Here's one for those of you who think you are the only ones who make dumb mistakes.

I was flushing the brake system on my '93 945 and, at the same time, trying to find out the souce of a clunking sound when I used the brakes. To flush the brakes I was using a power flusher which used air pressure from the spare tire to push brake fluid though the system.

I had removed the top caliper pin on the left front to check for wear. Then I removed the bottom pin, lifted the caliper off the rotor and hung the caliper on the spring. As I was cleaning and greasing the pins, to my horror, I watched the caliper piston slowly start to push out of the caliper. I had left the power bleeder connected and the air pressure was pushing the piston out!

It was like a nightmare where you can't move fast enough to stop something bad from happening. The piston came out and brake fluid squirted everywhere. What a mess!

Eventually I got the piston back into the caliper. Hoping I hadn't damaged the seal, I cleaned the brake fluid off of the area, and finished the flush job. Fortunately The pads were off and didn't get fluid on them.

This shows that, with a little lack of concentration, anyone can make a simple job into a hard one.

P.S. The brake calipers were a little loose on their pins but I think the clunk was coming from badly cracked sway bar link bushings. I'll get new ones. Does anyone have experience with urethane bushings on the links?