Chaning the brake pads

[Liber]

ok so I've mastered the oil change, now I want to tackle the brake pads soon. I once watched a guy change my brakes on my old car (chevy lumina) it looked so friggin easy I wanted to kick myself for not doing it....uhh.. myself....

anyway I was wondering if the jeep liberties are as easy, or I should leave it for the pros. So any pointers.



P.S. in a few more thousand miles I want to change out the shocks... is that worth it as well?

 

[dnm45227]

In my experience if you can do disck brakes on one you can do them all. Same concept, just differnt methods and types of mounts that hold them together.

 

[cowcatcher]

I will give you one tip. Before you dismantle too much rlease the bleeder valve on the brake lines, get something like a big screwdriver into the pad area and push the plungers back as far as they can go. Now start taking things apart. When I did my daughters jeep it took me an hour and a half to do the right and 20 minutes to do the left because I tried to retract the plungers with the brakke caliper assembly removed. It also helps to have a cheap bleeder kit. I spent about $8 and it really cut down on the mess.

 

[skipperb]

after you have taken the two screws that had held the calipers on,you can take a large pair of pliers and squeeze the calipers back down ,make sure you do this with the old pads in place, and you wont have to bled the brakes. if you see you need new rotors autozone has factory rotors for 22.00 each.

 

[dnm45227]

I use a disk brake caliper spreader. Paid about $10.00 years ago, just put an old pad on the piston and turn the handle. I don't even bleed them when done, unless I had to change a caliper out or something like that.

 

[DougBenn]

Great big channel lock pliers do the trick every time.

 

[cowcatcher]

Great big channel lock pliers do the trick every time.

Must be old age as it sertanly didn't work for me. ](*,)

 

[Emoto]

$22.00 for brake rotors???? (Aeh)

 

[Cableguy]

Big old self-adjusting clamp with rubber jaws usually works pretty well, just un-cap the brake fluid resevor first. Made it noticably easier when i did mine.