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DIY – How To Change The Brakes On Your Car

Always, always monitor your brake system. As a car user and owner, there is nothing which is more important for your safety and that of your passengers.

 

DIY – How To Change The Brakes On Your Car

Here is a quick overview of a DIY – How To Change The Brakes On Your Car. But, before that, here are a few things to keep a lookout for to know when your brakes need a change.

Always keep an ear out for the squeaking sound. This happens when a brake pad wears down on a rotor. An audible safety measure, this, however, may not be there in some cars. Thus, newer cars have brake pad sensors and corresponding dashboard alerts on the pads needing replacement.

Besides the above indicators, a brake pad on getting low requires a longer stroke of the caliper’s piston. This is while clamping down on the rotor and leads to lowering in the amount of fluid in your brake reservoir. You may even get the warning light “BRAKE” on your instrument cluster.

It’s best to replace the brakes at this point since if let be, the pad’s material might wear down to the point, where the pad’s metal backing plate starts making contact with the rotor surface. Made of steel, these will end up making heavy grooves in your rotor’s surface and thus you’d have to end up changing the rotors as well. Not to mention, the price of safety too!

In order to change your vehicles brakes by yourself, you need to acquire the following tools.

A pair of gloves, ratchets (3/8” and 1/2”), a breaker bar (1/2”), assorted extensions (3/8”), sockets (3/8” and 1/2”), open-ended wrenches, Torx and hex sockets as per your vehicle’s requirement, c-clamp, hydraulic jack, jack stands, pry bar, wire brush and WD-40.

Next up, you would have to purchase brakes and rotors, again as per your vehicle’s requirement.

Now, comes the actual work.

Get around to loosening lugs. Put the parking/ emergency breaks or place a brick behind the back wheel. Using the breaker bar on the socket to loosen the front lugs, position the brick to behind the front wheels and repeat for the front wheels.

Raise the car with the hydraulic jack and remove the wheels. Using the suitable bolts, remove the calipers, and the caliper carrier. After this, you’d have to remove the rotor which may need a little effort depending on the age of the car. Study the rotor before doing this as some car models have screws which need to be removed before the rotor can be brought out. If rusted, remove the rust before installing a new rotor.

Following this step put back everything that you removed – assembling the carrier, compress the caliper and install pads and caliper and put on the wheels. Pump the brakes till pressure is reached and break in the new pads and your new braking system!

If you are looking for a dealer to get you car maintenance done, then head on over to TED BRITT CHEVROLET!

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christopher frost

Thursday 2nd of November 2017

Hello Kelley and hopefully Your readers , The reason I'm writing this reply is to add a cpl of important steps to the DIY brake service procedures. First off a little science behind auto brakes and what's going on that stops the 4000 lb. vehicle in very short distances safely . Brake rotors and pads convert friction into heat during braking so new pads on a new or used rotors will cause braking action to start happening sooner because the pedal is closer to You when pads start to exert significant force on the rotors but more importantly there is more mass with pad material that is 1/2" thick as opposed to pad material that is only 3/16" thick for instance. So for the most amount of safe braking with the shortest distances to zero MPH's it is much better to change pads when They have worn to where there is roughly 1/4" of friction material left. And if You are doing Your own vehicles brakes You are still saving quite a bit of money on Your brake jobs . Now when doing the work the very first thing You want to do is use some soapstone or something to mark Your rims and rotors on the area where the lug nuts go through the rotors. This is called indexing these parts for re-installation to retain good smooth balance . If You don't there is a possibilty that 1 or more of Your tires/wheels will be out of balance and will cause some wheel hopping which can and usually will be felt while driving the vehicle. Also if there is any significant uneveness of the rotors friction surfaces You can take them to almost any auto parts retailer to be turned or resurfaced for a small fee. They will measure the thickness of friction surface and if They are close to or thinner than the minimum allowable rotor safe thickness then They won't usually turn them , or at least They are not supposed to as there are state laws making it illegal to do so. This is a good time to clean check and grease front bearings. When You re-install rotors tighten the nut on the spindle until it stops then turn nut counterclockwise about 1/8 of a turn then spin rotor a few revolutions then tighten nut again until it stops then turn counterclockwise 1/8 turn or less to line up hole in nut with hole in spindle install retaining cap then cotter pin and dust cap . Now You can proceed with caliper/pads. When installing the calipers and pads You should first clean the pins or bolts or the devices the calipers slide in and out on then once They are clean and dry and there are'nt any nicks or burrs or anything that could not allow the calipers to move in and out smoothly then spray white lithium grease on those parts the calipers slide on. Make sure to not get the grease on the friction surfaces of rotors or pads. If vehicle is rear wheel drive, For breaking in new pads I would google this . Wagners website has the procedure explained very thoroughly

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