Brake Caliper replacement question

[anhizer]

Hey all,
I recently started hearing some grinding noise coming from the rear of my truck so I pulled the wheels off to evaluate. First wheel (drivers side rear) I pulled showed the pads were completely worn out (down to the metal). After seeing this I decide, OK - break job time. I go down to the store and buy all the needed parts (rotors, pads, new clips, grease, cleaner) and proceed to do a relatively standard brake job. I finish up that side and move to the other (passenger) side. This side the pads look basically new (probably .375-.5" of pad remaining).

Looking a bit closer, the drivers side caliper appears to have been replaced at some point- the caliper itself looks to be plated (goldish appearance) and doesn't have the sumitomo stamping. The passenger side appears to be original- cant tell if it was ever rebuilt (150K on the truck) so I'm going to assume its never been touched. The flex lines on both side look original as well but don't appear damaged.

I went ahead and completed the brake job with the existing parts i had, but I'm now planning on going back and fixing the underlying issue. The drivers side (newer) caliper seemed to move freely- when i retracted the piston it seemed to move without effort. The passenger side seemed to be a bit more sticky- it wasn't horrible but it wasn't exactly smooth either.

Right now i plan on replacing the passenger side (original) caliper and both flex lines. I also think there is a flex line in the middle which i might as well replace (I haven't looked under the truck yet, i assume its only one).

Does this plan seem appropriate?

Also couple of follow up questions:
- Do i need to do anything special for bleeding the brakes? I JUST had the master cylinder done so the fluid was fully flushed (funny that the shop didn't mention anything about the rear brakes being bad given they had to bleed all four corners. its like they didn't do the brake inspection i requested...)
-Do i replace the drivers side (more wear) or Passenger side (less wear). I see conflicting ideas on this. On one hand if the pad is sticking open its not going to wear as fast. If its sticking closed its going to wear faster. I could also just do both and cover all my bases...

Im doing the brake lines on both so swapping the calipers would be easy.

 

[Sandroad]

I was faced with a similar question a couple years ago when I was doing a brake job. RF caliper ok, LF with a frozen piston. To err on the side of safety and good brakes, I replaced both calipers with Toyota remans that the dealer ordered for me with my usual good customer discount. I did not do anything special for bleeding the brakes. I had the new calipers all ready to go and hanging in the wheel well, then just quickly shifted the flex line from old to new. A quick standard bleed of the new calipers (only a couple ounces of fluid) kept everything in good shape. That, along with the new pads and hardware, and my brakes are excellent. If you are going to replace the flex lines, I'm not sure how to keep from losing too much fluid.

 

[anhizer]

Yea, i think thats probably should do. Ugh. This being responsible thing is a drag

 

[cpcc]

change both calipers

 

[agaisin]

i had a sticking caliper, rebuilt them all with the oem kits and new rotors all around and been fine since. I'd either rebuild or get new calipers. At the time I swapped in speed bleeders for easier one man bleeding, only regret is that even though they fit the metric thread they require an sae non standard oem wrwnch size so i fear it's easy for someone ither than me working on it to get confused, use the wrong (metric) wrench and start to round the bleeders. I think they make all with the sam sae wrench size and just vary the male threading to match applications.