So I was driving along last weekend when I started to hear a grinding noise during braking. I wasn't anywhere near anything (it being rural Finland during summer cottage season) and I figured it was the warning sound from the brake pads wearing thin. So after returning to civilisation, I got myself a new set of pads (I don't think the originals have ever been replaced) and took off the rear passenger side wheel, which is where the loudest noises came from, my intention being to replace the pads as per
this diagram.
However, when I got the wheel off and swung back the calliper and had a look at the thing, there were several new issues (see
attached image Dropbox link at the bottom). First one being that I couldn't remove the old pads - they seemed firmly glued into place by rust and dust. Then I noticed that part of the rubber seal from inside the calliper itself had gotten caught in the brake mechanism and had torn a hole. Finally, the brake disks themselves look like they really ought to be replaced.
So this raised a few questions:
1. how do I remove the old pads when they're basically welded into place? I got the outside pad loosened a bit but that took ages and eventually I gave up and wiggled it back to its original spot.
2. what exactly is that rubber seal for (is it for convenience, or is it critical to the integrity of the brake system) and how urgently should I get it replaced?
3. this probably answers itself, but should I also be replacing those discs at the same time?
Edit: my image was ~250 KB and the forum told me the max attachment size was 200 KB. So I resized and cropped it slightly so that it was ~180 KB, and then the forum told me that the max size was 50 KB. What!? So I gave up trying to attach it. Here's a Dropbox link to the image instead:http://www.dropbox.com/s/rsmwq1kau1agyoa/Screenshot_2015-07-07-20-46-24.jpg