How freely should the slide pins move?

[J]

Driver side caliper on a 2009 Civic appears to be wearing the inboard pad more than the other. Outboard pad is about 5mm left, inboard pad is about 2mm left. On passenger side inboard is about 4mm left and outboard is about 5mm left. Clearly the driver side appears to have some kind of issue.

I didn’t have enough time to pull out passenger side pins to compare but I did dismantle everything on the driver side:
1. Bottom slide pin appears to move freely. It was already greased when I pulled it out, no tear in boot, no rust in bore. Everything appears fine. When I push it in and let go it pops back out on its own.
2. Top slide pin is different in that it appears to have a bushing on the end. This one was also greased, no tear in boot, no rust in bore. This one when I push it in and let go, it stays in place. I suspect this is normal due to the bushing on the end. But I also don’t know if it’s supposed to slide and the bushing is possibly swollen.

The grease I found on the pins was not from me, previous owner had it serviced a long time ago. It’s black in color, don’t know if this is some original moly thing from Honda or if they used another grease.

If the pin isn’t causing it to stick I don’t quite know what’s causing the issue with the pad. Piston and its boot appears fine (admit I didn’t try compressing it since I didn’t want to deal with fluid in reservoir). Even with everything tightened down the rotor does spin by hand without any drag from pads I can feel.

Topic

[college man]

If grease was used the rubber on the slide is most likely swollen. The other may have
to much grease or the air from the grease keeps pushing it out.You may need a new rubber
isolator. clean all the grease out with brake clean and rags and start over with silicone paste.

[Author]

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