Brakes - 05/05/2007

I was driving home on Friday, enjoying my power locks, AC, and 4 speakers. Then I noticed a whining sound that just would not go away unless I pushed the brake pedal down. All I could think was "damn, I hope nothing is wrong with the engine." Turning off the AC compressor and stereo did nothing, it was a screech from the passenger side... I checked the front wheel when I got home and found a giant ridge in the rotor. Damn. Now I need to do pads AND rotors. I'll bet the bearings are probably going to need to be done too. So off to my local NAPA I went since I knew they would have the parts on a Saturday morning...



Tools, check.



Parts, check.



Car, check.



The sheer amount of brake grime on the rotor is pretty scary. Not to mention there are 3 ridges in the rotor. One at the top and bottom, and one smack in the middle (I'm not sure how this happened). There is plenty of meat left in the old pads, so this side wasn't making any noise due to the screech tab despite grinding a giant ridge into and wasting the rotor.



Piston still in place, so it just needs to be pushed back in.



Nasty caliper mounting bolts. Clean these up with a brush.



Look at this. No rivets exposed, yet a ridge was being worn.



Yeah, I'm annoyed.



Old cotter pin to be removed. I got new cotter pins for free from NAPA because I was buying so much stuff ($280 worth of rotors, pads, and bearings).



Old bearings. No bluing here. Kudos to Steve for teaching me how to remove this seal without a fight!



Old bearings are removed.



New rotor. Greased up the bearing and installed the grease lip seal.



Rotor completed.



Cleaning off the caliper.



Cleaning this area is important to allow the caliper to slide back and forth for even pad wear.



Caliper back together and pads installed.



Driver's side all done.



The passenger rotor has an even worse ridge on both sides and one pad was worn completely to the rivets (the grinding sound). Which is funny, because the rivets are taller than the screech arm was...



Spindle is cleaned up.



Old nasty parts. One of the bearings had some blue exposed.



Rotor is installed.



New cotter pin installed.



Passenger side is all finished.

Well, total time spent was 90 minutes working on the car at a total cost of $280. Cheap considering what a chain shop would have charged for the same job! Breathing protection is a must for this job though, cleaning off old nasty brake dust will go everywhere.

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Last updated May 5th, 2007