Caliper, rotor, pad replacements

My 06 is at 160k and the front brakes haven’t been changed in who knows how long. There’s also a lot of rust on there. I’ve resigned myself to the fact I’ll need to replace the calipers as well.

I’ve watched a number of vids and understand the process but worried about the rust and getting the seized pins out.

My frame was replaced under the recall so hopefully my new hard line is able to be disconnected easily. If I’m replacing the calipers do I even need to remove these pins? Or can I remove the brake line and the two caliper bolts and take the whole loaded caliper off the rotor?? Sure would save a lot of headache with the rust situation.

I’m planning to get a set of decent Raybestos calipers/rotors/pads on Rockauto.

Local shop quoted me $1k+ nonOEM, my truck’s a beater, looking into doing it in the backyard…

 

If you're doing it all the calipers can come off the rotors - just pop the mount bolts and brake lines off and slide the whole assembly off, then pull the rotors.

The first thing you should do is try to break the caliper mount bolts loose. Mine were seized BAD after 100k in the rust belt.

A longass cheater, torch, repeated PB Blaster soaks the week prior, and my homegamer grade impact didn't even touch them. The shop I eventually had to take it to said they had never fought with any that bad.

You might also want to just go ahead and replace your hardlines while you're at it, even OEM are not that expensive. Make sure you have a 10mm flare nut wrench for them.

 

Awesome, thanks for the reply.

Glad I don't need to mess with the pins. The hardlines were replaced during the frame recall so they're in good shape and hopefully come off easy. I have the 10mm flare linewrench.

Good point on the seized caliper bolts - sounds like that is my biggest risk of making this from a simple job into a very tough job!

 

A trick someone posted is to slightly depress the brake pedal to keep the reservoir from draining its fluid. That’ll save you from dealing with air in the abs.

Expecting stuck bolts as mentioned, I’d use liquid wrench reapplied repeatedly. A good quality 6 point 1/2 drive socket and long ratchet or breaker bar if you don’t have an impact wrench. Another trick is to pull tension on the ratchet and put a wood block under it to hold the tension on it. Sometimes it works.

This is one of the times you want to make absolutely sure the jack stands are situated good.

 

A couple things I should add.

Hook up your battery charger so the brake light doesn’t kill the battery.

If you hold tension on the socket and smack the socket with a hammer, sometimes that’ll work to loosen it.

 

- point 17mm socket and a GOOD set of line (flare nut) wrenches.
I forget what size the brake lines are 10mm or 12mm.
If you round the brakes off, the job just got "worse".

Don't buy the Harbor Freight line wrenches. They SUCK.
For the money, the Craftsman at Lowe's are pretty decent.