- In this video, I'm gonna show you
how to change some brake pads and rotors
on a 2004 GMC Sierra.
(text whooshes)
Hey, Donnie Smith here with Car Addict Garage,
and today, we're showing you
how to change some brake pads and rotors.
And the first thing you want to do is chock it.
You don't want this to roll around on you.
You want to make sure it's secure.
Go around and put some blocks on there.
And now we are loosening these up.
Since we're not using an air impact and a lift,
you have to break these first so the tire won't spin.
And they're pretty tight,
so we're having to use a cheater bar to break 'em.
And once we get 'em broke, that's good enough.
Then we can go ahead and lift this up.
Now, I have sped this up a little bit
since we're not using a lift and air tools,
air impact, things like that.
Don't want to bore you with just watching us jack
and use the tire tool and things like that.
But I tell you what.
Chuck Norris and his nunchucks
don't have nothing on me with my tire tool.
So, I'm taking the wheel off.
I'm gonna loosen all them, taking it all the way off now.
And once I get this off, I want to do another safety deal,
and I want to put a jack stand under there.
You never want to get under,
or even partially under a vehicle with just a floor jack,
or any type of Jack.
I know, if you're having to fix a flat out on the road,
you may have to, just be very careful,
but there's been a lot of people hurt with falling jacks.
So always get some extra,
a jack stand or something like that.
Some people will even put the tire under there
to kinda help catch the vehicle if it was to fall.
But always take safety, take it seriously.
And last thing we want to do
is get hurt or anything like that.
That certainly wouldn't save you any money
doing it yourself.
Now I am taking the caliper bolts out. There's two of 'em.
They use a T55, I believe.
(grunts)
Yeah, T55. That's a Torx.
And they are really tight too.
We was having troubles getting that out,
so we had to get an extension to break those loose as well.
We did spray some WD-40 on there.
I don't know if I showed that,
but yeah, it was really, really tight.
And we got those out, and again, that's a T55 on those two.
And next, we'll take the caliper off.
And it's very important with this caliper,
don't just let it dangle and hang from the hose.
You could damage it or whatever.
So I'm trying to get that off. It was a little stuck.
I tried to push that piston back a little bit.
There's two of 'em.
I got one of 'em to release, but the other one didn't.
But a little persuasion and wiggling, I got it out.
So, but yeah, don't leave that caliper
just dangling on the hose.
You want to set it up.
If you can't find nowhere, you may even get a coat hanger
or something to tie it up
so it's not putting all that pressure on the hose.
So, I've taking the brake pads off.
You can see they're pretty worn down to metal on that one.
And they was definitely needing replaced.
And then it's had the rotor warps.
We're gonna replace the rotor as well.
And just about any time you replace brake pads,
you need to either have 'em turned,
or they're gonna have some wear on 'em.
But we decided just to go ahead and replace these.
Now we are taking the caliper bracket off,
and that uses an 18 millimeter.
And again, they was really tight,
which I expected them to be
'cause they use Loctite on those, but they was really tight.
But we're getting that off.
Gonna speed that up a little bit too,
and we'll get those two off,
and then we can take the rotor off.
I guess you could call this front-drive method.
Used to say shade tree. Don't hear that term much anymore.
But anyway, doing it without all the power tools.
And I think it's important.
This my boy's truck, and he's helping,
just kinda for them to learn how to do it
without all the tools,
'cause you're not always gonna have all those.
So anyway, I got that bracket off,
and now this is just a little keeper that goes on the stud.
And basically all that is, is to keep the rotor on
until you get the tire and wheel on.
So, really don't need that.
Tear it up getting it off or whatever.
I'm not too worried about that.
I probably won't put it back on
when I go to put it back together.
Now I just hammered on this.
This will kinda loosen all the rust and stuff off,
and you may also want to spray some WD-40 on those lug nuts.
It's all that corrosion and rust kinda gets it stuck,
and they get kinda hard to come off.
But a little banging, a little wiggling, you'll get it off.
Now, on this bracket,
there's brackets in there for the brake pad,
I'm gonna take those off,
and I want to clean underneath those real good.
And I just got some WD-40 and a scuff pad,
and I'm just cleaning all that rust off,
so it's nice and clean when it all goes back together.
And I'll do both sides.
But I'll clean it with some WD-40,
and then I'll spray some brake cleaner
to clean it all off real good and wipe it down.
And then I'll put some grease.
Now, this was, they're supposed to come with brake grease.
These brakes did not come with the brake grease
or the clamps, or the clips that hold those brakes in.
Some do and some don't, but I'm putting some grease on there
just to help lubricate that, keep it from rusting.
And then I'll put this bracket back on for the brake pad.
So, hopefully this works as well.
I know the, seems like the brake lubrication is blue,
I think, but this, hopefully this'll work as well.
So I'm cleaning the other side up,
and put that bracket back on for the brake pad,
and now I'm greasing the outsides of 'em.
I greased underneath 'em,
but I'm also greasing on the outside of those brackets
where the brake pads will meet them.
So that way there's,
doesn't cause no rust or anything there.
So anyway, I got that greased, and now I'm pretty much done
with this bracket for right now.
I can put it aside, and now I'm cleaning the hub assembly.
Now, that's another area
that gets a lot of rust and stuff on it,
so I'm using a red scuff pad and some WD-40,
and just going around and cleaning that too good,
getting any loose rust that I can off.
And once I get that cleaned up,
I'll clean it with some brake cleaner,
and then wipe it down.
And then I can get the rotor and get started with that.
So yeah, getting it cleaned up real good.
And this just helps it from rusting later.
Okay, now I'll get the brake pads, and kinda look at 'em.
They're not too hard to figure out which way they go.
There's 'bout one way they can go, really.
So I'll look at it.
If you are confused about that,
be sure and look at it before you take 'em off,
and then just put it back the way they were.
But I'm just setting 'em back in there.
I'm putting that outside one in first,
and then I'll put the inside brake pad on.
And now I've got the rotor,
and I'm just gonna clean it with some brake cleaner,
make sure all the oils are off of it.
I'm gonna go ahead and put it on.
And I'll clean the front side later,
after I get it put together.
Now I'm using some Loctite.
And it recommends doing this for the caliper bracket,
just the blue Loctite.
Put those in, get the bracket,
and I'll go ahead and put the bolt in the back,
kinda get it started,
and then I'll set that on there and work on the top first,
and kinda get that all lined up.
You gotta wiggle it around,
and kinda get it lined up where that will start.
And once you get that one started, you can push it down,
and then align the bottom one, and put it in as well.
And you need to put Loctite
on both the top and the bottom bolt.
Get 'em started real good, and then you can snug 'em up,
and we'll torque it here later.
So, okay, I got that.
Just kinda cleaning it up a little bit,
that caliper bracket and the brakes.
And now I'm gonna tighten it up.
And again, I'm just gonna get it pretty tight,
just with the ratchet, and I'm gonna come back
and torque it here after I get this caliper on.
Now, this one piston didn't go in all the way.
Just the one did, but this one was stuck in,
so I had to get it pushed in.
And you want to be careful doing this.
You don't want to break it or anything,
or, you kinda wanna go easy
and go it a little bit at a time.
So I'll have to squeeze it just a little bit,
tighten my clamp up a little bit,
and squeeze it a little bit more.
Takes a few times.
You don't want to push it too hard too fast.
You might break that piston or something.
So take your time doing that,
and you shouldn't have no problems.
I mean, I've never had no problems with that. I don't know.
I've heard people say they have,
but I never have had a problem with that.
So, all right, so I'm just getting that compressed,
and soon we'll be ready to put this caliper on.
(birds chirping)
Yeah, I'm not sure what happened to the camera there.
It was hot.
So maybe it, I don't know, it was fogged up for some reason.
But I also got a little bit of grease,
and put it on the pistons, just to keep them
from corroding and rusting, things like that.
And then you can slide this on.
Now, if you didn't have the pistons compressed all the way,
you'd have a very hard time sliding this over.
So that's why you want to make sure and push those back.
But you basically just push it on there,
get it aligned real good,
and then you can put the two bolts in.
Now, I put some grease on this one.
Doesn't recommend Loctite,
but it does need some grease on there.
So I've got that on, got it lined up,
and you just have to wiggle that around a little bit
'til you get it, and then kinda hand-tight it in.
And then I'm gonna do the same with the bottom one.
And I'm gonna grease it, and then get it started.
And then I can go with the ratchet, and kinda tighten it up,
and then I can torque everything.
So I'm getting that done.
Now, this is a T55.
The other side, it stripped out
and we had a hard time with it,
and we went to the part store and bought some more,
and it had a bolt on it, a bolt head instead of a Torx head.
And I like that much better. I hate messing with these Torx.
They strip out a lot, you have problems with 'em.
So, I don't know,
every time if you go to the part store and buy that,
they would give you.
I mean, it's the same, exact same bolt,
but it has a bolt head on it, which I like a lot more.
Okay, now I'm cleaning up the rotor on the outside,
making sure it's good and clean,
all the oils and stuff are off of it.
And then, about got this job done,
just need to torque these down.
And these torque to 80, the bracket does.
And then the caliper torques to 60.
Now, you may check that with your truck to make sure,
but that's what I found online.
So, but yeah, I would double check that, just to make sure.
And then I'll get this tire put on.
And be sure and do kind of a cross motion
to get the tire on even.
And then you can take the jack stand out, take the jack out,
and now I'm torquing everything.
And again, go kind of in a cross motion first, star motion,
whatever you want to call it, where you're going.
And then you can kinda go around 'em all,
just to make sure they're all good and tight.
And I torqued these down to 90.
But again, on all the torque specs,
make sure to just check that yourself,
and see what do you find,
or what the recommendations are for your truck.
Anyway, thanks for watching, take care,
and we'll see you in the next video.
(tool whooshing)