Replacing Brakes - Preparing New Parts

Richard Cottingham: My name is Richard Cottingham, from Tysons Auto Specialties. Today we are going to show you how to replace the front brake pads and rudders on a Chevy truck. Next we are going to take a look at the caliper slide pins and the caliper pad holders and we are going to inspect them to make sure that they are fine; I will show you how to clean them up.

Okay, next we are going to verify that the rudders are the same as the ones we took off the vehicle, that the new ones are the same and that the pads are the same as when we took off the vehicle before we go any further. And they look like they are the same as far as the pads go.

Next, we will check the rudders. Not only I want to make sure that the rudder is of the same diameter, but you also want to make sure that's the same height. So we will lay the rudders next to each other facing down, like this, its easier, little easier to do it when they are facing down. And we will verify that there of the same height, that way they will sit on the car properly, and it looks like they are indeed the same.

So next, we will take and apply a BG chemical called Stop Squeal to the brake pad itself, which helps us prevent having comebacks for squeal on brakes and it works really well for us. We will take and spread that over the top of the pad, where it's soaked in and dry. But in the winter time, this takes a little longer to dry than it does in the summer time when the weather is warmer. It takes probably about 15 maybe 20 minutes for the chemical to dry on to the pad during summer and spring. Winter time, it may take a half hour or 45 minutes sometimes approximately.

Alright, now he has got the BG chemical on the pads, the Stop Squeal. We will slide the pads over and then we will clean the rudders because rudders generally come with a protective coating on them and you want to clean them with the brake cleaner. You don't want to use a carburetor cleaner or anything else but a brake cleaner, because other cleaners have oils in them and you don't want oils on your rudders.

So we will clean those with the brake cleaner and a rag and I will just generously spray the brake cleaner on the rudder and clean them all. Be sure to do both sides and also do the hub of the rudder, because that chemical on there will or coating on there will stink when the rudder gets hot.

And make sure you clean all the rudders that you are replacing on your vehicle. The reason why we wouldn't want to replace the pads by themselves and you can and a lot a people do and get away with it, but you get uneven wear. Now you can machine rudders some of them, but these rudders in particular, pulsate on the truck. So I am not going to waste my time machining them and just turn around having the pulsation when I am done, I am going to replace them.

I want to replace them because it's uneven, the pad is not going to sit flat against the rudder like it should, and could cause a brake squeal, it could even cause a pulsation naturally. So that's the reason why we do replace the rudders, we do here a lot of specialties anyway.

What you also want to wok for when you get you your old pads off, you saw the pads fairly even from side to side, these pads are fairly even. If you had a pad that was wearing a whole lot faster on the inside, on the piston side of the caliper, then you would assume that you have a caliper piston sticking. If you had a pad that was wearing a whole lot faster on the outside of the caliper assembly, you would assume that you would have a slide pin sticking or rusted and these are your slide pins and your bolts that hold the caliper to the pad holder.

And what you want to do -- these are fine actually, but a lot of cars you will have -- they will be rusted really bad. So you will take little of like Scotch-Brite pad or a like piece of sandpaper and just clean them up a little bit, till they are shining, like that. And then before we install them back on the car, we will put a little disc brake lubricant on them and we will just lightly coat them. So we can ensure that they are going to move freely and our brakes will last a lot longer that way.

Also its where your pad slides on your pad holder, it's very important to see that's free of rust. Sometimes in a pad kit, if you but a really good pad kit, you will get these pieces new, which we did in this kit here. So we will replace them, so they will be free of rust, but if they are not free of rust like this; this is nice and clean, and this allows your pad to slide back and forth and retract when you release the brakes. If this is going to stick on here, its going to cause your pads to wear out more quickly.

So if you don't have a new set of those with your pads, what you can do is take Scotch-Brite again and clean it up real good, get the rust and the dust and the dirt off of it. And then before we install it on the car, just like we do with the caliper pins, we will apply a real light coat. You want to do a light coat because you don't want this grease getting on to your rudder, and this will help your pads to slide freely and your brakes to last long.

So that's how to inspect your caliper slide pins and your pad holders and lubricate them. Next we are going to show you how to retract the caliper.