Lessons Learned: Brakes

[ProZak]

OK, I'll get the obvious ones out of the way:

1 - Have your Bentley handy, or a print out of the relevant pages. In my case, they're 313 to 317. If you have the same PDF I do from Rutgers, there you go.

2 - Set aside some time.

3 - Have lots of light.

Less obvious (*grr*):

1 - The brake pad carrier mounting bolts on the *front* are 19mm. The brake pad carrier mounting bolts on the *rear* are 15mm. Bentley says they're "similar" - make sure you have the right sockets. Oh, yeah, and a breaker bar.

2 - When doing the front brakes, I discovered what is probably a very old trick of cranking the steering completely over to the side you're working on, to better expose the caliper and aforementioned mounting bolts.

3 - Disconnect the break wear sensor light before you dismount the caliper. It may not be apparent under all the grime, but there's a plug / socket about 8 inches from the sensor itself, where the wire thickens.

4 - Don't use a gravel surface. Whit, I can hear you yelling at me now, and in my defense, it's all I had to work with today. And, yes, when I released the parking brake to free up the rear rotors I dropped the car.

Dammit.

Dammit dammit dammit.

Minor damage (little scratch where the jack was, and banged up the heat shield on the right rear brake assembly), major embarrassment. My wife's first response was "good thing you work alone; you could've killed somebody." Not "are you okay" or " is the car okay." Ah, the romance is alive. Anyway, I digress.

I had the front wheel chocked, but in gravel ...

Let's see, what else? Oh, right:

5 - The front brake rotor mounting screw is larger than the rear brake mounting screw (7mm and 5mm, I think? Have a complete hex wrench / driver set handy)

If you're only doing pads, leave the brake pad carrier mounted. Just pop the caliper off; pads will slide right into place.

That's all I can think of for now. Headlights next.

-Zak-

[BillionPa]

6mm on the front

even the dealership gave me the wrong ones, luckily the old rears were in fine shape.

if you do the rear brake lines, make sure you have an 11mm flare wrench handy, otherwise you will turn the steel lines into silly putty.

only cost me $12 to get new trailing arm steel lines, but i had to bend them myself, that sucked hardcore.

[Bleeding_Knuckles]

why would you want to remove the lines to replace pads?

6mm on the front

even the dealership gave me the wrong ones, luckily the old rears were in fine shape.

if you do the rear brake lines, make sure you have an 11mm flare wrench handy, otherwise you will turn the steel lines into silly putty.

only cost me $12 to get new trailing arm steel lines, but i had to bend them myself, that sucked hardcore.

[632 Regal]

nice wheels...

[BillionPa]

to replace the calipers and flexible lines actually.

got new rotors, rebuilt calipers, speed bleeders, stoptech lines, and axxis pads.

and now new trailing arm lines!

[632 Regal]

wow, going for the new car scenereo

to replace the calipers and flexible lines actually.

got new rotors, rebuilt calipers, speed bleeders, stoptech lines, and axxis pads.

and now new trailing arm lines!

[BillionPa]

doing it on the fronts too while i do the entire suspension.