What once was broken now will brake...

If you've ridden with me in my car in the last week, or been around when I've pulled up, chances are you've wondered, "What is that awful noise coming from your car?"  I figured I knew what the problem was, but I wanted to be sure.  So, last week I jacked my car up and ripped apart my rear left brake.  Sure enough, the inner pad was totally worn.  Being that it was Friday night, there wasn't a whole lot I could do, and I knew I would be working the next three days, so I decided that it wasn't going to do any more damage that it already had seeing as the inside of the rotor was pretty well grooved.  However, with a day off on Tuesday, it was time to get things taken care of.  After some on-line research, a stop by the auto parts store, a quick consultation with Jonny, and stops at the Family Dollar and NAPA, I was ready to go.

With the exception of the rotor being pretty well rusted to the bearing assembly, the rear left brake/rotor replacement went quite smoothly.  When it came time to do the other side, I thought I should do a little documentation of the process for the blog since I haven't posted in over a year...

Here's were we started with the whole process - old brakes and old disks.

 Looking closer, you can see some light circular makings on the rotor, but this is normal wear.

 After popping the wheel off the caliper and rotor are exposed, and I've already pulled the spring off of the caliper.

 The caliper comes out pretty easily (if you've released the parking brake that you put on to loosen the wheel lugs that is) and you can see the back side of if in the foreground of the picture resting on the caliper bracket that is still in place.

 When your brakes wear down, the cylinder that squeeze the pads on the rotor keeps on extending.  Here you can see the almost fully extended caliper cylinder that needs to be retracted before I can fit it over the new pads and rotor.

 

After 45 minutes of work (I'm not sure why this one was such a bugger) I finally was able to get the cylinder fully retracted.  The rear cylinders are self adjusting ratcheting cylinders, so you need to spin them clockwise while you push them in, so the usual "C-Clam method" is out.  For both calipers I ended up opening the bleeder screw and to be able to get them back in.  They make a special too for these kind of cylinders, however, 45 minutes and a needle nose pliers will get the job done too...

You can see the two divots in the face of the cylinder where your specialized too/needle nose pliers would go.

With some Liquid Wrench, a 14 mm open ended wrench and a 5 pound hammer, the bolts holding the caliper bracket jumped right off the mounting points behind the rotor and now all I had to do was loosen up the rusted on rotor and I'd be totally disassembled.

It didn't take too much work with the hammer, first on the front of the rotor between each of the studs, then from the back side where the caliper sits to loosen it up and pull it off.

With a new shiny rotor in place, I bolted the caliber bracket back on and hosed the whole thing down with brake cleaner.

The outer pad just sits on the caliper bracket and is held in place by the two "fingers" of the caliper.

The inner pad actually mounts to the cylinder and here it is being held up by a bungee in the wheel well.

Slap the caliper back in place and put the spring back on and it's time to get that rotor and wheel locked down on the hub.

And the finished product.

Minus the 45 minutes it took me to retract the cylinder, I'd say that if everything went smoothly I could switch out pads and rotors at about a hour a wheel.  Everything is working great now, with the exception of the air I sucked back in while dinking with that cylinder, so I'll have to find a buddy and bleed those lines soon.  All in all, I'd call it a success and a money saver.

Tools to have next time -

Cylinder retraction tool
14 mm socket
an impact wrench would be nice, but I don't think I'm going to rush out and get one.