Change your brake pads the easy way!! Takes 5 minutes.
02-11-07, 01:33 PM
#1
Lexus Test Driver
Thread Starter
Change your brake pads the easy way!! Takes 5 minutes.
Hello everyone-- this site is invaluable to you for maintaining your lex on a budget, and if you ever need parts, pm aliga, as he parts out low mile salvage sc's as a business-- very good deals-- and he's knowledgeable..
All that aside-- Change your brake pads the easy way!!
This will tell you the easy way to change brake pads, this may come as no surprise to you, and you may have already done it this way from the beginning, however I didn't, and I've change many sets on all my cars, and it hit me like a rock, I had one of those "I'm such an idiot" moments, and my method changed forever. Now I know why there are brake shops-- that do nothing but brakes... It's real fast money.
OK-- (first you want to remove the brake fluid reservoir cap to allow fluid to freely move into the reservoir while you re-compress the pistons)
I've always removed the entire caliper from the spindle-- but you don't want to do it that way, instead, just undo the bolts that connect the slider pins to the caliper/piston half of the caliper, and when you remove those two 14mm bolts, the half of the caliper with the pistons and the brake line connected to it will slide off-- leaving only the frame on which the piston half of the assembly slides on--
What you will have left is a pad sitting in the track on each side of the rotor, with two springs that fit into a hole in each of the pads, and they assist the pads in spreading when you let off the brake pedal--- These two springs are shaped like a wishbone, and when you remove these, you then remove the pads by sliding them out of the track, then you slide the new ones into the track, and they sit there waiting for the hydraulic half of the caliper to be reinstalled-- The pads literally slip right into the track super easy, as opposed to trying to slide them in from the opposite with the caliper fully assembled, and it's 5x as hard that way.
The next step--
You'll need a pretty sizeable c-clamp for this, and multi piston brakes are harder than single piston, as you have 2 pistons (sc factory brakes) to compress at once-- You just rest the worn pad which should be thin now against the two piston rams like the pad would sit when assembled, and clamp the c-clamp where it will force the pistons into the caliper when yo u tighten the clamp-- It can sit at sort of an angle and still work-- Just get those pistons nearly all the way into the caliper body--
(There is also a tool -- disc brake tool-- that does this and they're maybe $10 from oreilly's or even less from harbor freight)
With A LS400 4 piston caliper, you would need to do this on both sides at once, which would require a special pad spreader like the tool mentioned above, but with two plates, although I'm sure the regular one sided tool can be improvised to work-- the trick is that you have to spread all the pistons at once.
Final Step--
You should now have the caliper spread enough to slide back over the new pads that will be much thicker, and then just replace the bolts in the slider pins, and you want to get these just tight enough, to factory spec, though I'm not sure what that is, I just don't want to overdo them -- a smaller bolt like that generates a lot of torque due to it's size, and 75 ft/lbs should be enough to hold it securely.
Now you're done, and that long speech only took you about 5 minutes per wheel to complete--
If you already do it this way, just feel sorry for me, as I've changed several sets on multiple cars I've owned the hard way, and am sure glad I figured this out-- (a factory service manual would've probably helped this incorrect method from ever happening-- but those are $45 right??)
Hope this helped
All that aside-- Change your brake pads the easy way!!
This will tell you the easy way to change brake pads, this may come as no surprise to you, and you may have already done it this way from the beginning, however I didn't, and I've change many sets on all my cars, and it hit me like a rock, I had one of those "I'm such an idiot" moments, and my method changed forever. Now I know why there are brake shops-- that do nothing but brakes... It's real fast money.
OK-- (first you want to remove the brake fluid reservoir cap to allow fluid to freely move into the reservoir while you re-compress the pistons)
I've always removed the entire caliper from the spindle-- but you don't want to do it that way, instead, just undo the bolts that connect the slider pins to the caliper/piston half of the caliper, and when you remove those two 14mm bolts, the half of the caliper with the pistons and the brake line connected to it will slide off-- leaving only the frame on which the piston half of the assembly slides on--
What you will have left is a pad sitting in the track on each side of the rotor, with two springs that fit into a hole in each of the pads, and they assist the pads in spreading when you let off the brake pedal--- These two springs are shaped like a wishbone, and when you remove these, you then remove the pads by sliding them out of the track, then you slide the new ones into the track, and they sit there waiting for the hydraulic half of the caliper to be reinstalled-- The pads literally slip right into the track super easy, as opposed to trying to slide them in from the opposite with the caliper fully assembled, and it's 5x as hard that way.
The next step--
You'll need a pretty sizeable c-clamp for this, and multi piston brakes are harder than single piston, as you have 2 pistons (sc factory brakes) to compress at once-- You just rest the worn pad which should be thin now against the two piston rams like the pad would sit when assembled, and clamp the c-clamp where it will force the pistons into the caliper when yo u tighten the clamp-- It can sit at sort of an angle and still work-- Just get those pistons nearly all the way into the caliper body--
(There is also a tool -- disc brake tool-- that does this and they're maybe $10 from oreilly's or even less from harbor freight)
With A LS400 4 piston caliper, you would need to do this on both sides at once, which would require a special pad spreader like the tool mentioned above, but with two plates, although I'm sure the regular one sided tool can be improvised to work-- the trick is that you have to spread all the pistons at once.
Final Step--
You should now have the caliper spread enough to slide back over the new pads that will be much thicker, and then just replace the bolts in the slider pins, and you want to get these just tight enough, to factory spec, though I'm not sure what that is, I just don't want to overdo them -- a smaller bolt like that generates a lot of torque due to it's size, and 75 ft/lbs should be enough to hold it securely.
Now you're done, and that long speech only took you about 5 minutes per wheel to complete--
If you already do it this way, just feel sorry for me, as I've changed several sets on multiple cars I've owned the hard way, and am sure glad I figured this out-- (a factory service manual would've probably helped this incorrect method from ever happening-- but those are $45 right??)
Hope this helped
02-12-07, 05:49 AM
#3
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there is an even easier way. just unbolt ONE of the slider bolts at the bottom, leaving the top one attached and just slide the outer caliper part up while it's still on the bracket, and swap out the pads/compress the pistons. ;]
02-12-07, 06:00 AM
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.but hopefully this help some people out there 
02-12-07, 08:43 PM
#7
Lexus Test Driver
Thread Starter
I'll take that as a justifiable argument, however, it has been rare that I've earned more than about $27/hr in my lifetime, you may be different, but changing my pads myself in less than an hour is a very good way to hang onto at LEAST $100 --
Now that's good money.
Now that's good money.
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02-13-07, 01:58 AM
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yea i usually only remove the bottom 14mm bolt and i flip the caliper up change the pads and spread teh calipers and flip it back down 1 bolt btw for ls400 brakes u don t need a special tool it's just like the 2 pistons do 1 side at a time you will be ok.
what someone needs to do is a write up on parking brake too much drifting mine is shot
btw for ls400 brakes u don t need a special tool it's just like the 2 pistons do 1 side at a time you will be ok.what someone needs to do is a write up on parking brake too much drifting mine is shot
