I was hoping it would only be three hours....
anyway, 2002 Land Cruiser, live in Michigan, I drive short distances and don't put many miles on it, maybe 12,000 miles in three years but a ton of stop and go around town and where I work (inside a chemical plant where they use copious amounts of road salt in the winter; mostly calcium chloride, though). I bought some Power stop pads and rotors last year anticipating the need to do them this year and last week the need became more than apparent.
My rear driver side brake had a pad that sounded like it just absolutely fell apart, so I took some time off work to do the brakes and a few other things around the house.
I'm not much of a grease monkey, so some of these are no-brainers to you experienced guys, but things I learned:
1. The salt they put down in Michigan makes everything take way longer than you anticipate.
2. An aluminum rim stuck to a steel rotor is a PITA to get off. I tried several things, the method that seemed to do the most was to back out the lug nuts just a little bit and set the vehicle down removing the jack and jack stand and then grab the top of the tire and rock it back and forth. (i tried the drive in a figure 8 thing, etc. also, so they all probably helped a bit)
3. Those spring clips are buggers. I started on the pads that were blown apart and just removing the caliper made the pads fall out. I didn't pay enough attention to where they were when I removed them. After getting frustrated and then searching the web, I had a homer simpson d'oh moment, when I realized I could just go look at the other side and see the relative position of them through the rim.
4. Buy anti-seize. (see No. 2)
5. A long enough breaker will brake a seized sliding pin off in the torque plate; then you get to replace the calipers too. (in my defense, the pin was grotesquely corroded and I did not have time nor did I think letting PB blaster would have salvaged it; it was the pin with the bushing on it and was not going anywhere).
Now that I've done it, even though I don't anticipate having to change the pads again for a while, I plan on being better about periodic maintenance and taking the wheels off, checking lubrication on the calipers, etc. as it got much quicker the 2nd (and third wheel I did it on - put a remanuf. caliper on the driver side to match the remanuf. one on the passenger side).
One last thing: searching the ih8mud messages provided invaluable information along with Ishobie's youtube video!
For reference, passenger side before replacing rotor/pad/and calipers, pad clip for the top has the 2 little tabs on it on the right. The remanufactured calipers from NAPA had 4 clips that were all the same and looked like the top clips, I reused the bottom clips I had, as the clips push in different directions and wasn't sure how critical it was.
Bottom clip:
anyway, 2002 Land Cruiser, live in Michigan, I drive short distances and don't put many miles on it, maybe 12,000 miles in three years but a ton of stop and go around town and where I work (inside a chemical plant where they use copious amounts of road salt in the winter; mostly calcium chloride, though). I bought some Power stop pads and rotors last year anticipating the need to do them this year and last week the need became more than apparent.
My rear driver side brake had a pad that sounded like it just absolutely fell apart, so I took some time off work to do the brakes and a few other things around the house.
I'm not much of a grease monkey, so some of these are no-brainers to you experienced guys, but things I learned:
1. The salt they put down in Michigan makes everything take way longer than you anticipate.
2. An aluminum rim stuck to a steel rotor is a PITA to get off. I tried several things, the method that seemed to do the most was to back out the lug nuts just a little bit and set the vehicle down removing the jack and jack stand and then grab the top of the tire and rock it back and forth. (i tried the drive in a figure 8 thing, etc. also, so they all probably helped a bit)
3. Those spring clips are buggers. I started on the pads that were blown apart and just removing the caliper made the pads fall out. I didn't pay enough attention to where they were when I removed them. After getting frustrated and then searching the web, I had a homer simpson d'oh moment, when I realized I could just go look at the other side and see the relative position of them through the rim.
4. Buy anti-seize. (see No. 2)
5. A long enough breaker will brake a seized sliding pin off in the torque plate; then you get to replace the calipers too. (in my defense, the pin was grotesquely corroded and I did not have time nor did I think letting PB blaster would have salvaged it; it was the pin with the bushing on it and was not going anywhere).
Now that I've done it, even though I don't anticipate having to change the pads again for a while, I plan on being better about periodic maintenance and taking the wheels off, checking lubrication on the calipers, etc. as it got much quicker the 2nd (and third wheel I did it on - put a remanuf. caliper on the driver side to match the remanuf. one on the passenger side).
One last thing: searching the ih8mud messages provided invaluable information along with Ishobie's youtube video!
For reference, passenger side before replacing rotor/pad/and calipers, pad clip for the top has the 2 little tabs on it on the right. The remanufactured calipers from NAPA had 4 clips that were all the same and looked like the top clips, I reused the bottom clips I had, as the clips push in different directions and wasn't sure how critical it was.
Bottom clip:
