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Hey guys, Chris fix here, and today I'm going to show you how to replace your brake pads and rotors on your car or your truck. We'll be replacing the brake pads on my Mustang, which is perfect because the brake setup on this car is going to be similar if not identical to most other makes and models. This video is going to be a complete guide, so if you're a beginner and you've never changed the brakes before, after watching this video you'll know everything you need to do to be able to replace the brakes yourself. This is also a good guide for a refresher if you've done brakes before, or if you're an expert. I'm going to be including tips and tricks so anyone watching could perform a complete and thorough brake job. The last thing I want to say for everybody who's doing this for the first time is don't be afraid to change your own brakes. I know the most nerve-wracking thing is the fear that if you do something wrong you're not going to have brakes to stop your car, but let me tell you, the brake systems on cars are actually pretty simple and it's hard to mess up, so give it a shot. You're going to save a ton of money, you're going to learn something new, and you're going to feel proud that you're able to fix your own car. Before we begin, I want to thank Advanced Auto for helping out and supplying the brake pads and rotors for the video.
All right, so let's begin. The tools I'll be using for this job are all common hand tools: you need a simple socket set, a breaker bar, a torque wrench, and a metal wire brush. The only specialized tool is this brake piston compressor, which is inexpensive, and you can pick it up when you pick up your brake pads and rotors. I also want to have a large hammer like this, which will help knock the rotors off if they're stuck, and a pry bar or a flathead screwdriver like this, which will help pry open the caliper. You're also going to need to get your tires off the ground, so I'll be using a jack and jack stands. Those are all the tools you're going to need. As for consumables, you're going to need some copper anti-seize, silicone paste, brake cleaner, and thread locker. Finally, you'll need some brake pads and rotors. I prefer ceramic brake pads. They are a little more expensive, but they have less dust and they tend to last longer compared to semi-metallic pads. Make sure when you get your brake pads that it includes the brake hardware, which is important for doing the complete brake job. For rotors, I like using a regular blank rotor. Drilled and slotted rotors are nice, but they will eat up your brake pads a lot quicker, so for the street this is perfect. That's all you need.
So let's begin. There are four simple steps to changing your brake pads and rotors. First, you want to safely lift the car off the ground and remove the wheel. Second, remove the brake pads, unbolt the caliper, and remove the rotor. Third, put the new rotor on, reattach the caliper, and install the new brake pads. Fourth, put the wheel on, lower the car to the ground, and go test those brakes.
Since we're replacing the front brakes, the first thing you're going to want to do is lift the front end off the ground. Before we do that, grab your wheel chocks. In this case I'm using a piece of wood and chock off the rear wheels so your car won't move. Before we lift the tires off the ground, we want to crack all the lug nuts so they're loose, because if you try to do this when the tire's off the ground, the wheel will just spin. If you're not sure where to jack up your car, check the owner's manual. They give you instructions and show you exactly where they recommend you jack the car up. Since you replace brake pads in pairs, we're going to be doing both front brake pads, so I like jacking the car up from the middle so both tires raise up at the same time. The best way to lift both front tires is by jacking it up from the front crossmember. This is a thick piece of metal that supports the whole front suspension. With the car in the air, slide your jack stand underneath the car. I try to just stick my arms underneath the car when I move the jack stand. Don't put your whole body under the car; you don't want to be under the car until it is securely set onto the jack stands. When looking for a place to put your jack stands, this right here is the floorboard. If you put it here, your jack will go right through the floor into your car. What you're looking for is a thick piece of metal frame just like this right here, and you can find the same exact spot on the other side. After both jack stands are in place, slowly lower the car down so that the jack stands securely support the car. Just as backup, I like to set up the jack so there's some light pressure on that crossmember. The last thing I like to do is give the car a good shake and make sure that it's stable and doesn't move. With the car safely lifted off the ground, we can remove the lug nuts and remove the wheel. Another thing I like to do for extra safety is slide that wheel underneath the frame. That way, in a worst-case scenario, you have something solid there and the car won't drop all the way down.
All right, so now we have access to our brakes. We want to remove the old brake pads and old rotor, and in order to do that we need access to the bolt behind the caliper. We want to work with the car to make the job that much easier, so get in the car and turn the steering wheel so the caliper bolts are more accessible. The first thing we're going to do is remove the brake pads. To do that, we're going to remove this bolt right down here, which will allow our caliper to pivot upwards like a clamshell, and then we can pull the pads out. Normally these bolts use a regular socket, but in this case we have a Torx bolt, so we're using a T50 Torx. I start off with the breaker bar every time so you can break these bolts loose easily. Once you use your breaker bar to break the bolt loose, you can use a regular ratchet to loosen it the rest of the way, and it'll come right out. You can see the blue Loctite on the threads, so we'll be sure to add some when we screw this in later on. Now we can pry open our caliper, which might take a little force, and then remove our old brake pads, and they'll come right out just like that. For this brake caliper, we only had to remove that one bolt right down here, but on other brake calipers there's also another bolt right up here that you could remove to take this whole clamshell off. In this case, all you have to do is lift this up like that, and the caliper slides right out. With the caliper removed, you don't want the caliper to just dangle by the brake line, because that's how you damage your brake line. Instead, find a place to put your caliper where it's out of the way and there's no pressure on the brake line. If you don't have a nice place to leave your brake caliper, you could also use a bungee cord or a rope or something to hang it up.
Next, we want to remove this caliper bracket so we can pull the old brake rotor off. To remove the caliper bracket, go behind the knuckle. You can see there's a bolt right up here and a bolt right down here holding this bracket in, and we need to remove both. In this case it's a 15 mm bolt, and again, start off with your breaker bar so you can easily break these loose. These are going to be the tightest bolts, so they'll be the toughest to break loose. After we're done cracking the bolts loose with our breaker bar, we can loosen them the rest of the way with our shorter ratchet. With no bolts holding it in, the caliper bracket slides right out.
Now we're going to remove the brake rotor. Make sure the brake rotor isn't being held in by a screw. In this case there's nothing holding it in, so you could try wiggling it off, but just as I figured, it's rusted to the hub. To remove the rotor, we're going to use a large hammer. Use a pretty good amount of force and hit the outside edge of the rotor, spinning the rotor as you go, until it breaks loose, just like that. If you take a look at the back of the rotor, you can see it's all rusty in here, which just rusts itself right to the hub.
With our old rotor off, we want this surface right here to be smooth and relatively rust free. It doesn't have to be perfect, but we want a good flat surface. Grab your metal wire brush or sandpaper and start removing the rust from the hub surface. It's also a good idea to use eye protection and a dust mask while you're doing this. You want a smooth surface for your new brake rotor so it can mount flush against the hub. After we sand the whole surface, grab a bucket, grab our brake cleaner, and spray it down. Since we're cleaning things up now, it's a good time to clean up our caliper bracket. With everything sanded down, we could add our new brakes, but you guys know how I like to go over the top with my cars, so I cleaned up the suspension a little bit. I removed all the grease, sanded it down, used a little bit of primer, and then used black spray paint to get it looking real nice. You guys definitely don't have to spray paint your whole suspension, but make sure your hub surface is completely smooth so we can install our new brake rotor.
Before you install your brake rotor, one thing they do with brake rotors is put an oily film on them so they won't rust while packaged inside the box. What you do is get a little brake cleaner and spray down the entire surface of the rotor, then wipe it down with a paper towel. You can see all the oils that are getting removed from the rotor surface. Don't forget to do the other side as well. Wipe it clean and again, look at all the oils we removed. Good. Now we can install our rotor. You'll see that the rotor tends to want to fall off, so a little trick to hold it in place is to thread a lug nut all the way on. This prevents the rotor from moving while you install the rest of the brakes. With the rotor securely in place, we can install our caliper bracket, which is held in with two bolts. We want to add some medium-strength thread locker to prevent vibrations from loosening the bolts as we drive. Now we can take a bolt, align our caliper bracket, and tighten the bolt by hand. We'll do the same thing with the second bolt and hand tighten that all the way down. Good. Now grab your torque wrench. On this car, the caliper bracket bolts get torqued to 90 lb-ft. That's one, and that's the other.
With our caliper bracket in place, we want to grab our caliper. We need to compress this piston all the way back into the caliper so our new thick brake pads will fit in. A quick tip: before you compress this piston into the caliper, remove all the acidic brake dust, dirt, and grime here, because we don't want that stuff to find its way into the caliper and contaminate the brake fluid and damage the seals. You don't want to spray brake cleaner directly onto here, because there's a rubber seal right back here and brake cleaner will dry out that seal. Instead, spray it onto a towel and clean off that piston. That simple trick will prolong the life of your caliper. Now we can compress the piston. To do that, get one of the old brake pads, put it up against the piston, then slide in your brake piston compressor tool and start turning it. You can watch the piston compress right back into the caliper. This should feel nice and smooth, and it shouldn't be difficult. Once it starts getting difficult to turn, that means you've bottomed out, so loosen it up and remove the tool and brake pad. Some pistons are solid and have a cross in them, and these need to be turned to compress. There are inexpensive tools made for that. This is most common on rear brakes, but I wanted to show you in case you encounter it.
With our piston compressed, now's a good time to add our new brake hardware. For this caliper we only have one brake clip that goes right there, so I'm going to use a screwdriver and pop this out. The old one was oriented like that, so we'll install our new one in the exact same orientation. With the piston compressed, the brake clip in, and the caliper bracket on, we're ready to install our brake pads. But before we do that, we need to lubricate the brake system. For this we're going to use a copper-based anti-seize, not the typical silver graphite-based anti-seize. The first area of lubrication is right here at the caliper bracket, where the brake pad and guide meet. Up here and down here, add some anti-seize. Be careful and add just a little bit right down here and right up here. It makes sense to have lubrication here so you don't have metal-to-metal contact, because this has to slide back and forth as the brakes get used. On the other side of the caliper, you have identical spots where the brake pads sit, and you also want to lubricate those. It's also important to lubricate the brake hardware, so get a little copper anti-seize and lubricate the top of the brake hardware. The last place to add a thin layer of anti-seize is on the back of the brake pad, which helps prevent squeaks. That's everything you need to lubricate. Your hands are going to be covered in anti-seize, so it's important to clean them off or get new gloves, because you don't want anti-seize on the brake pad surface or the rotor, which could cause your brakes to fail.
Now let's install our brake pads. If you were wondering what the stripes were on the brake pads, that's burnishing compound to help break the brake pads in. Installing them is really this easy. The brake pads slide right in just like that. They won't fit in properly if you put them in backwards. That's what I meant earlier when I said it's really easy to install brakes and really hard to mess this up. Now, the caliper slides on something called caliper guide pins, which is this right here. You want this to be smooth, rust free, and lubricated really well so the caliper can move freely. Clean it up with some brake cleaner, and now add some silicone paste right to the caliper guide pin. Don't use anti-seize, and don't use a petroleum-based lubricant, because those products will degrade the rubber on the caliper. Silicone is the proper lubricant for the guide pins. On other cars, like this Honda, the guide pins are built into the caliper. They're like bolts that you slide out, clean off, lubricate, and then push back in. Make sure the guide pins move freely. In this case, the caliper slides over the guide pin, and then you close the caliper over the brake pads like so. Now we install our bolt. Remember the blue Loctite we saw on the end? Add a little bit to the end and tighten the bolt. This bolt gets torqued to 25 lb-ft. Then turn the steering wheel straight so you can more easily put the wheel back on. Don't forget to remove the lug nut you had on there to hold the rotor in place. Then put the wheel on your car and hand tighten all your lug nuts.
We're almost done. Go do the brakes on the other side, and after you finish, remove the jack stands and slowly lower the car so the tires are just touching the ground, so they won't spin when you torque them. Torque your lug nuts in a star pattern so the wheel tightens evenly. Most wheels are torqued between 80 and 100 lb-ft, and in this case I'm torquing them to 100. With the wheels torqued, let the full weight of the car rest on the wheels and remove the jack. That's all there is to replacing your brake pads and rotors. There's one more thing to do inside the car: start it up, then pump the brakes a few times. Don't worry, you won't have brake pressure the first few pumps, but then the pressure should build up and the pedal should feel firm. That's all there is to it. After watching this, you'll be able to change your own brakes, so go out there and give it a try. If you change your brakes after watching this video, let me know in the comments below. As always, I hope the video is helpful, and if you're not a subscriber, consider subscribing for more how-to videos like this. Finally, the products I used in this video are linked in the description.