DIY Front Brake Pads

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Silverbullet08

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I know this is a difficult task but I thought might as well make one for some of the new guys that have never tried to change them before. I also painted my calipers since I thought it was a good time to do this too. :)

1. Jack the front of your truck up so you can remove both front wheels. I put two jack stands under the frame to help support the truck. And no I didnt jack up the truck on the nerf bar, the stock jack was just there. Never used it lol
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2. Remove Wheels
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3. Remove Cap on master cylinder so that it wont overflow with brake fluid when you take apart the caliper. You can put a shop rag or plastic baggie to catch the overflow. Mine did not overflow fyi
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4. Remove the 4 bolts that hold the caliper in place. The bigger bolts are 21mm and the smaller ones are 13mm. Soak good with wd-40 for about 15 minutes so its easier to take them off because they are super tight.
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5. Remove the bolts and pull the caliper of the rotor. Be careful because it is heavy and u dont want to mess up the brake fluid line. I used a wire hanger and rigged it up so it would hold it up.
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6. Separate the caliper and Remove the old brake pads. they just push out the sides.
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7. Now you need to compress the piston. Get a c-clamp and one of the old pads. Start to tighten the clamp so the pistons compresses.
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8. Put the new pads in the caliper. I got ceramic pads so you would want to grease the back of them before you put them in so they wont squeal when you drive them.
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9. Put it all back together and tighten all your bolts tight.
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Next steps is what I did to make sure the new pads mated to the rotors well.

10. Start the truck and press on your brakes 5-6 times. Then I went to a emptied parking lot and did runs from 45-5, pressing on the brakes 5-6 times and repeated the process from 35-5. Then I drove around for 15 minutes. This worked for me as I have zero squealing and my truck stops great now.

Hope this diy helps some people out. Enjoy! Silver
 

ramhunter9

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good job man . nice work
 

NOTW

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Nice write up. Something like this is so simple to most of us, but others pay big bucks to have it done because they aren't sure how to do it! We need more simple write ups like this!
 

quietpeen

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very nice write up....painted rotors look great
 

ike43

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a little tip, unless you did it , you should always make sure your rotors are really smooth, no high and low spots when you are only changing pads or the pads wont seat properly and will squeal, also when changing pads make sure you put on a new hardware kit and remove slide pins from caliper and clean and re lube, not being a critic just giving advice for people doing this for the first time, seized pins and old hardware are often overlooked .
 

DILLIGAF

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Well today the rotors didnt want to come off. So I got the biggest puller I could find :)

 
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