How to Change Front and rear Brake Pads and Rotors (Complete Guide)

hey guys chris fix here today we'll be replacing the front and rear brake pads and rotors on a 2008 nissan altima coupe after watching this video you'll be able to do a complete front and rear brake job on your vehicle as usual we're going to be using all common hand tools nothing special to get this job done you can do this in your own driveway i just want to thank carpark kings real quickly because i couldn't find these brake pads or rotors anywhere and i contacted them we needed to get this brake job done and they were able to send this out to me i got it in two days and now i'm able to do the brake job so i'll leave a link to their website in the description below you can go check them out so we'll start out with the front brakes i'm gonna jack the car up get the tire off and then we'll start [Music] remember anytime you're lifting the front of the vehicle make sure that you have jack stands on both sides i also use a jack i keep the jack there for extra protection and then you'll see i'll put the tire underneath the chassis also don't forget to block off the rear wheels to prevent your car from rolling now we'll take the tire off and slide it underneath the chassis for extra protection so because the brake calipers on this side we're going to turn the steering wheel so the brake caliper comes out this will just give us more access to all the bolts and everything here so the main steps are we're going to remove the brake pads remove the whole caliper take the brake rotor out put the new brake rotor in put the caliper back on put the brake pads in and then we're done the first step is take the brake pads out so when looking at the caliper from the front there's two bolts there's a bolt here and a bolt here that hold this caliper on so all you need to do is unscrew one of these bolts and the caliper will either open up this way or that way like a clam shell now if you look here we have a brake line coming from the top so if we try to open up the caliper like this the brake line is going to get pulled on and we're not going to be able to open it but if we undo the bottom bolt we'll be able to open up the brake caliper like that and this brake line here will be able to move upwards so we want to take the bottom bolt off so these two bolts are 14 millimeter just get your socket on there i'm using a breaker bar just to break this loose because it's pretty tight on here and this just gives you extra leverage once you break this loose you can get in here with your regular ratchet loosen it up you can even just hand loosen it now it should come right out now we're going to pop the caliper open just get a flathead screwdriver in here wedge it up and that opens up just like that now you can take your brake pads out close that up and you don't want to tighten this all the way just hand tighten it to keep it in place because we're going to be putting the new brake pads in after we replace the rotor with the brake pads out let's go get to the rotor in order to get the rotor off we have to take the whole caliper and caliper bracket off the knuckle so here's a top view of the brake rotor and brake caliper there's the rotor here's the caliper here's the top caliper bolt this is the one that i didn't take off we took off the bottom one you can see here's the caliper bracket and then here's the caliper bracket bolt the caliper bracket gets mounted to the knuckle right here so we need to remove this bolt and right under this bolt is another one so you can see that's the bolt that i was just pointing to that's the caliper bracket bolt the other caliper bracket bolt is right down here we want to get both of these bolts off and that will remove the whole caliper and caliper bracket so we can get the brake rotor off this is a 22 millimeter i'm using a breaker bar because this is gonna be on there tight oh real tight get the bottom [Music] now we can get in here with our normal ratchet just loosen these up so the top one is undone almost all the way i screwed it back in just a little bit just to hold the caliper in place i'm going to unscrew the bottom one the whole way once you take these bolts out the caliper will just drop so you want to make sure that you keep at least one bolt in so we got that bolt out now i'm gonna take the top bolt out now before we unscrew this last bolt all the way get a rope bungee cord something to hold this caliper up so we don't want the caliper to be dangling from the brake line that's how you damage your brake line so we're gonna take this off got the bolt out now we're gonna take the caliper and we're gonna hang it from wherever in this case we have the strut right here that we're hanging it from and what that does is it prevents any pressure from going on this brake line so now sometimes the brake rotor will just come right off other times it's stuck on there so just get a big hammer [Music] [Music] and that'll pop that right off and you saw i was working the top then the bottom then the top then the bottom and what happens is it gets rust welded right here right onto the hub right here to prevent that from happening again we're going to use some anti-seize just get a little bit on your finger rub it right on just like that and that'll prevent it from getting seized up again so there's the old brake rotor here's the nice new one what i like to do is just make sure that they're the same size the same diameter and in this case they are what i also like to do is i like to get some brake clean and just go on here and clean off the surface here a lot of manufacturers use an oil to keep this from rusting and you can see there was oil on there now we'll put this on here [Music] good look at that these are awesome rotors they have painted hats and painted fins so you won't get that rust welding that we just had even though i did put anti-seize on there and it'll also stay looking nice so you won't get all that rust like on the old brake rotor now one thing i like to do is get one of your lug nuts and just screw one of the lug nuts on and that'll hold the rotor in place so there's no play so now before we put our brake caliper on what i want to do is i want to get these two caliper bracket bolts get some thread locker this is the removable type just put a little bit of thread locker right on these bolts and what this thread locker does is it prevents vibrations from loosening up these bolts since this is in an area that's prone to high vibrations it's just a little extra step to keep it secure now we'll get our caliper in place as that's in place we'll slide the bolt in at the back here so we got our top one in we'll go down at the bottom we'll get our bottom one in now we'll tighten these up once you get the bottom snug we'll go to the top then we'll snug up the top good now we're going to get our torque wrench and we have our torque wrench set to 98 foot-pounds for these caliper bracket bolts good that's the top one good that's the bottom one so both of those are torqued now we can do the brake pads and we're done with the front so to go along with these really nice brake rotors we have these really nice brake pads full ceramic brake pads and the clips that hold it in so we'll just get our hand back in here to that bolt that we loosened before and kept loose take that out pry this upwards and lean it on top like that get our flathead screwdriver in here and just pry out these old clips if you want you get a metal wire brush in here and get some of that brake dust out of there now before we install the brake pads and also the clips for the brake pads i want to show you something real quick so here are the brake pad clips and what happens is the brake pads sit right in here instead of brake grease i like using anti-seize because it collects a lot less dust and it works the same way by keeping your brake pads from seizing up just get a little bit of anti-seize on your finger like that rub it right into the spot where your brake pads will make contact same for the other brake clip just use a little anti-seize right in there and you're good to go now let's do the brake pads you want to make sure you don't get any anti-seize on the brake surface but on the back just get a little coat right on the backing plate and that'll ensure the brake pads won't stick to the caliper if you want instead of putting it on the clips you could put the anti-seize right on the end of the brake pads right here and right here and now we can install the brake pads now we have two different style brake clips here we have one with this thing that's sticking out and one without it the one we just took off doesn't have those little things sticking out so that's what we're gonna put here i just go right in now this one up here does have those clips so we're gonna replace it with one that has the clips as well let's go right in just like that so now we have the bottom and the top clips in let's go and push this piston in since our new brake pads are thicker than the old ones we need to compress this piston get your old brake pads slide that in like that get your brake compressor tool you could also use a channel locks or something like that you can open up the cap to the master cylinder if you want but i'm not going to this doesn't have to get compressed that much and this is sliding right in good you don't have to force this or anything now we're going to go down and put our brand new brake pads in so there's nothing complicated about putting brake pads in the only thing that you want to be aware is the wear indicator is at the top on this brake push the wear indicator side in first and push upwards and the brake pad will slide in just like that same goes for the other side you don't need to see me do this i slide in just like that so i just released a video on how to clean out the guide pins so make sure you do that so we'll just take the caliper guide pin out just like that this actually looks like it's in great shape and just clean this off if these aren't in good shape you could clean the inside of here as well but this is in really good shape so i'm just going to take my silicone paste get my silicone paste on there and slide that back in i'll do the top one also you don't have to see me do that you saw what you got to do okay so now we're just going to close up this caliper if it doesn't close it's because he didn't compress the piston enough but in my case it closes i got that bolt that goes right here tighten that up these caliper bolts get torqued down to about 20 foot-pounds i usually do this by hand now because i have a good feel of what 20 foot pounds is but if you want torque wrench 20 foot pounds and that's how you replace the front brakes you want to make sure we do these in pairs so we do this and the other side i'm not going to show you the other side it's the same exact thing so let's move to the rear brakes okay with the jack stands in place i keep my jack up again for extra protection and the tire underneath the vehicle just as back up we're ready to start the back brakes so the rear brakes are a lot smaller but have a similar setup you can see here's the caliper bolt and here's the caliper bracket bolt so this is very similar if you could do the front you could do the rear so we're gonna start by taking the brake pads out i'm gonna remove the top caliper bolt because the brake line goes towards the bottom so it'll allow our caliper to open like that get this top one off there we go it's gonna say you might need to use a breaker bar but that came off pretty easy good you can see the design is a little bit different our caliper guide pin is also the screw that holds this in pop that open take out our brake pads close it up tighten this up just hand tighten because we're going to go back in here a few minutes so our caliper bracket bolts are actually 19 millimeters in the rear so they're a little bit smaller since this area is so tight it's hard to get a breaker bar in here so i'm going to use my ratchet and then a hammer now you have to be careful because your ratchet isn't made to be hit like that but you gotta do what you gotta do to get the job done top bolt is loose let's go down to the bottom get that bottom bolt loose so i know it's hard to see in here but right there is the caliper bolt but there's this strut arm right here and it totally blocks getting our ratchet in here so we're gonna have to use an open-ended wrench and not a ratchet so now i have an open-ended wrench you can see i could get that in there so we'll get our wrench on there and we'll just use the hammer to break the bolt loose okay almost done good got the bottom one out hang on to the caliper take the top one out good and then we can put the caliper right on top here so there's no pressure on the brake line so now is when we want this to come off but it's not going to because it's stuck on here so we get our sledge good this right here fell out and all it is is a grommet for the emergency brake it goes in right there so our brake rotors look identical just going to get a little brake clean clean off the new brake rotor remember we have that piece of rubber that goes right in there there we go now we're ready to put this on so before we put the brake rotor back on let's just look at the emergency brake here make sure everything is in spec it all looks good i'm gonna hit it with some brake cleaner besides spraying these brake shoes down making sure that they're all clean there's no cracks you also want to make sure there's material left now this is only a parking brake or an emergency brake so there should be plenty of material these things rarely wear out but just in case it got engaged or stuck or something you just want to make sure that you don't need to replace these and that all the hardware the springs the pins over here all this stuff is in good shape and in this case it is you can see there's plenty of pad material and we could just use this the way it is so here's what i was talking about before now that we have a good angle you can see this strut bar right here is in the way when you're trying to get the caliper bracket bolt out so you can't get that in there so you have to use a wrench which will fit in here easily so that's what i was talking about before now that we have a good view i wanted to show you real quick now we can get our new rotor it on there same trick as before using the lug nut to hold the brake rotor in place grab our caliper bracket bolts just add a little bit of blue loctite right on there then we'll get our caliper get the top bolt in place i'll just hand tighten that top bolt now we'll get the fun bolt in place down here where there's no room see it's pretty tight in here so we'll try to hand tighten this one up now we're not going to be able to get the torque wrench in here so we're just going to have to hand torque it to 62 foot pounds get our wrench in here and i'm basically going to just hand tighten this as tight as i can get it with this wrench that should give me pretty close to 62 foot pounds good so now i got my torque wrench set to 62 foot pounds try to tighten this all the way okay the caliper bracket bolts are torqued let's put the new pads in and then we're done okay now we can unscrew this again open up our caliper now we're going to compress the caliper piston i'm going to use the old brake pad close that up all the way now we're going to pop out the old brake clips here push the new clips in get a little bit of anti-seize on your finger and get it right where the brake pads will touch the brake clips on both sides be sure not to get it on the rotor take this top clip out so here's the brake clip you want to get the anti-seize right in here right where the brake pads move back and forth the clips on the back brakes are both the same so don't worry about which one goes where just make sure you get them both in now we're going to get our new brake pads and slide them in really simple on the back of your brake pad add your anti-seize on both sides you could also use brake grease but i prefer anti-seize now we're gonna close up this get our caliper guide pin check it for wear and clean it off add some new silicone paste to the pin slide it in tighten it up 20 foot pounds good make sure you get a clean towel clean off the surface here again just in case you got any fingerprints or oil or grease on it looks good and we're done so that's how you install front and rear brake pads and rotors to do a complete brake overhaul i gotta say i'm glad that the parts store didn't have the brakes i needed and i got this order from carpark kings you know this is the first time i dealt with them they got the brakes to me really quickly so i could get my friend's car fixed so i highly recommend them check them out again link in the description below it's one of those things when you need a company to pull through and they do it for you it makes you pretty happy hopefully this video was helpful if it was remember to give it a thumbs up also consider subscribing if you're not a subscriber right up on the screen are going to be some other break videos that i've done so go check them out the links to those videos will be in the description below as well

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 5,858,217

Keywords: Brake Pad, car brakes, front brakes, rear brakes, brakes, disc brakes, brake rotors, brake pads, Brake (Invention), brake pad replacement, Ford Brake Pads, Chevy Brake Pads, honda brake pads, How to Install Brake Rotors and Pads, How to change brake pads and rotors, How to Replace Brake Pads, Change Ford brake pads and rotors, toyota brake pads, nissan brake pads, hyundai brake pads, Disc Brake (Invention), brake pads and rotor replacement

Id: lU6OKQxSg8U

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 27 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/DesiHobbes]

Is it ChrisFix?
"Hey Guyyyss!"
Yep, it's him.

[u/TheVerraton]

Why did I watch the whole video...?

I don't even own a car.

[u/grievre]

ChrisFix videos are short and to the point, but maybe a bit oversimplified.

Eric The Car Guy, South Main Auto Repair and briansmobile1 are the channels you go to for in-detail car repair videos (although it tends to be more "Here's a job I was hired to do and decided to record")

Whatever you do don't watch Scotty Kilmer.

[u/__redruM]

It you are mechanically inclined, brakes are an easy way to save money. Watch a video for your specific car before attempting though. Some times that rotor is held on with the rusted phillips screw from hell, and you don't want to attempt removing that without the right impact tool.

[u/grievre]

He kind of glosses over jacking up and supporting the car, you'll want to watch a video dedicated to that (or read your car's manual) to avoid attempting to support the car by a weak point and damaging it.

[u/notskunkworks]

Great video, I've found a lot of ChrisFix videos to be useful. However, I think it's much better to use moly brake lube rather than anti-seize. It lasts longer and is actually designed to lubricate and does a better job preventing metal-on-metal noises. That's just based on personal experience from doing both disc and drum brakes.

[u/TxBlackLabelRx]

Really can save a lot, most places will charge $400 to do your brakes, I've helped friends having them actually do it and they're amazed and pissed at how simple it.

The brake line hose, a lot feel that stainless braided lines are the best, not really, replacing the oem rubber ones are just as good. People will state they're firmer, what they are feeling is they just replaced worn hose, a new rubber will be firm also.

Bleeding brakes is another video he does, a must know how to when doing brakes.

[u/gearsandmath]

Stupid question, but after following this video what would be the signs that you put on the brakes incorrectly?

[u/[deleted]]

yea the instructions may vary depending on your make and model.