3rd Gen Front Brakes

I just replaced the rotors and pads on my 3rd gen Tacoma. I'm what you would charitably call "mechanically declined", and haven't done anything beyond oil and filter changes in quite some time (25+ years!). This post is for anyone else who may feel intimidated or hesitant to do some of the maintenance on their Taco themselves. If you're a "grease monkey", or rebuild cars as a hobby, save some time and skip this post.
When the brakes came due for replacement on my Taco, I decided to have a go at doing them myself. One, it's just satisfying to be able to do it yourself, even it does fall under basic, routine maintenance these days. It's also a fair amount cheaper (duh!) if you have the time.
Start to finish, it took me much longer than I had hoped- about 4 hours. To be fair, part of that time shouldn't count as I had to run out the store and get a breaker bar to get the passenger side caliper bolts loose. I took my time and did not rush.
I did some research before hand, and find it pretty cool how Toyota designed the brakes. In my past cars, you had to take the caliper off in order to replace the pads. On these Tacos, if all you need to do is replace pads, the caliper can stay on and it would take a lot less time than what I spent.
Some recommendations, for what they're worth.

• Do some research before hand. I'm not a huge fan of YouTube, but there are a lot of decent videos out there showing how to replace the pads and rotors.
• Buy replacement pins for the pads. The old pins had a fair amount of surface corrosion on them, and the upper pin on both sides was a pain to remove. The lower pins slid out pretty easily.
• Get replacement shims. They're inexpensive, and its worth it versus prepping the old ones for re-use. I ended up using OEM parts for everything, purchased from an online supplier (oempartsonline.com). Cost was about 60% of what my local Toyota dealership quoted me for only the parts. I re-used the clips from my truck, as they were not bent or corroded.
• Have a work light handy, at least if you're replacing the rotors. Having decent light made it a lot easier to line up the caliper when re-attaching it.
• Obviously, use a jackstand for safety reasons.
• Have a breaker bar for whatever size sockets you're using in case the caliper bolts don't want to loosen. The drivers side came loose relatively easily. I couldn't get the passenger side to budge without the breaker bar.
• If you replace the rotors, don't forget to re-attach the brake line bracket(!). I almost went to put a tire back on before realizing that I hadn't after tightening down the caliper bolts on one side. Also, do *not* let the calipers hang by the brake line! Use a bungee cord or similar to hold the weight instead.
• A specialty piston clamp might save some time, especially if you're not replacing the rotors, but a c-clamp worked just fine.
• Wear disposable nitrile gloves. The brake grease seems to get everywhere.
• Take your time- don't rush. Double or even triple check everything.
• Enjoy the satisfaction doing some basic maintenance yourself, and likely saving some cash while doing it.

I ended up having to purchase a floor jack and jack stands, as the prior ones I had seemed to have gone missing. The Harbor Freight Daytona 3 ton models work well, at least for my very limited use of them so far. Even with having to buy those along with a breaker bar, the total cost of the work was still about $100 less than what my local dealer quoted me.

 

Great check list. If you have not seen it yet, check out post. #1 of the Maintenance Map. Lots of great how to maintenance videos posted there.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-maintenance-maps-get-300k-miles.789809/

 

Thanks for the heads up on the checklist!

 

Great write up. Most maintenance, even some pretty advanced repairs can be done with a little confidence and attention to detail. A decent torque wrench is a big plus if you plan on doing more DIY repairs. Doing your own work saves a ton of money, keeps your vehicle on the road longer and makes it a nicer experience to own. Nice work!

 

Thanks! I used to do a lot more when I was younger, but life got busy, and got to a point where I valued my time more than the costs of having someone else do the work. Seems like I'm coming full cycle, as now I'm wanting to do more of the work myself. And I do plan on keeping my Taco for quite a while. I only really see two ways to replace it- accident or some other catastrophic damage, or Toyota announces that they will stop making 6M Tacomas, at which point I might buy a new one right before that!