How to Replace a Brake Caliper

hey guys chris fix here today i'm going to show you how to replace a brake caliper the caliper on my brakes went bad after changing out all the brakes i noticed that it was leaking and if these things leak they need to be replaced or rebuilt this is going to show you how to replace them it's pretty easy if you could do the brakes on your car you could replace a brake caliper so here are all the tools you're going to need to do the job just a bunch of different ratchets open-ended wrench thread locker different size sockets an extension a breaker bar a torque wrench and some brake fluid now let's begin the first step is going to be to get the brake pads out to get these brake pads out we just unscrew this bolt back here this is 12 millimeter and we'll undo the top one to open this up like a clam shell got that out now this should just pop right open just like a clam shell good like i said these are brand new breaks it's a little bit of rust from the rain from last night so we'll put these right back in when we're done now just close this back up put our bolt back in and we just hand tighten this before we unbolt the caliper from the knuckle what we're going to want to do is there's a banjo bolt here that brings the brake fluid into the caliper we want to crack that because right now it's connected you know it's solid if we try to crack this later we're gonna have to do it on a bench and it's gonna move around so now's a good time to crack this just get your ratchet this is a 15 millimeter just crack it open brake fluid is coming out so then i'm going to close this so now that i broke this bolt it'll be no problem to take off later now we're gonna remove the caliper bracket bolts that connect the caliper to the knuckle now we're looking from the back of the caliper we have to take two bolts off there's this bolt right up here that needs to come out and that bolt down here that needs to come out the caliper bracket bolts are usually on here pretty tight so i'm going to be using a breaker bar nice and long a lot of leverage this bolt that you need to get off is right there this is a 15 millimeter in my case do the top one first good now we'll do the bottom one good and now we can use a regular ratchet to get both bolts out completely that's one so one thing to remember is we have the top bolt off now we're undoing the bottom one after the bottom one there's nothing to hold this up so we want to hang on to the caliper so it doesn't just drop got the second one out now i have a bucket here ready and that'll hold the brake caliper you don't want to have any pressure on this brake hose because you could damage it we're not replacing the brake hose we're only replacing the caliper while doing this i should mention this brake rotor is going to want to move around so what i do is i hold it down i get one of my lug nuts i tighten it all the way down and i'll just add one more to the other side give it even more stability so this rotor doesn't move at all now it's going to help us it's going to keep this in place so it'll make putting the new caliper on a lot easier i added a box on top of the bucket just so that raises it up even more just so that there's even less stress on this it'll also allow me to turn this like that so i could unscrew this now with this brake caliper here completely off let's put the new one on since we're bolting on the caliper we get the caliper bolts and we add some loctite thread locker on each one and that'll just prevent vibrations from loosening this up get our new caliper put it into place slip our bolt in there hand tighten this caliper bolt in with the top one in get the bottom one aligned and hand tighten it now we'll get in here snug this up for now and we'll snug the bottom bolt as well now with this caliper mounted it'll make transferring this banjo bolt and the brake line to the new caliper a lot easier and a lot less messy our kit comes with these anti-rattle clips and we'll put these on later what we need from that is these two copper washers get our socket 15 millimeter crack that then loosen it up right away brake fluid is going to start leaking out so we're going to make this transfer real quick take your banjo bolt out i'm going to clean off the banjo bolt you can see it has a hole in it on the bottom and on the side and that allows the brake fluid to flow through this when looking at your banjo bolt you can see that one of the copper washers is flattened down on here really good it actually doesn't even look like there is a washer on here but make sure you get it off there's also a copper washer on this which is the brake line so make sure you take that off so make sure you get something to get this washer out that's very important good got that off now we'll take our new one just slide our new one on all the way slide it in the brake line get your other washer put it on the bottom and then this bolts right in real quick no mess it's a little messy on here but there's no mess on the new caliper and we're gonna just quickly snug this okay that's snugged enough that it won't leak so you can see how the banjo bolt gets set up there's a copper washer at the top you can see there's this lip thing here that actually goes on the top i know it looks like it should probably go on the bottom but it goes on the top and then underneath is another copper washer so the copper washers compress really well and they press against this and they prevent leaks because this brake system is under a lot of pressure so you don't want any leaks that's why those copper washers are there i should mention that a lot of people like to clamp the brake line i don't like to do that because it cause permanent damage to the brake line if you clamp this to try to prevent fluid from coming out you could crush the tubing in here and also you could crack this and it's just going to make you have to replace this whole brake line here with the brake line transferred we could get this whole caliper and bucket set up out of the way make more room now we have all that room we could start working on this getting the brake pads in and also bleeding the brakes so before we do anything else let's just torque this down on my truck the banjo bolt gets torqued down to 25 foot pounds remember have both the washers on there right now this torque is going to impress the washers against the surfaces making a nice and solid seal and there we go 25 foot-pounds so the caliper bracket bolts on my truck get tightened down to 85 foot pounds that's the top one and that's the bottom one with everything torqued down and tightened let's put the brake pads in this is a 13 millimeter which is different from before the old calipers were 12. good now this will open up like a clam shell remember that we have these brake anti-rattle clips this holds the brake pads in so they don't shake around and vibrate if you don't know where these go reference your old brake caliper this large one here goes on the top it has two clips that just click in just like so and these smaller ones actually mount to the bracket so if we're looking down at the bracket you can kind of see the brake pads sitting here and in the bracket you can see there's a little divot so this just quite simply fits in that divot and you just push down just like so and the other one same thing except for the top bracket just get the fit in and it clicks right in just like that again if you don't remember where they go just look at the old caliper you can see that big one goes in the middle just like it does there and then the two side ones go on the caliper bracket right there and the other ones right up there just like we did up here now since this is a brand new caliper even though i have brand new brake pads we don't need to compress these pistons these pistons are already compressed all the way so you just take your brake pad and these brake pads just slide right into those clips that you just put in and that's where they mount you want to add grease to the brake parts that have metal and metal contact on the caliper make sure you use very little grease when doing this you'll grease where the brake pads sit and contact the caliper on those anti-rattle clips that we just installed shown by the red circles and you'll also want a thin layer of grease on the back of the brake pads shown in the red box do this for both sides of the caliper and both brake pads these brake pads have leftover grease from the recent installation that i did so i'm not adding more grease myself i don't like using a lot of grease the other side is the same exact thing they just slide right in so now both brake pads are in let's close up this caliper the caliper should just close up might need to give it a little wiggle now the springs should keep a little resistance on the brake pads that's the whole point keeps them from rattling keeps them from moving around so you can see if i try to push this in it'll bounce back out that's exactly what you want so just get your bolt slide it in push down your brake as you slide this in so it aligns then i'm going to get my 13 millimeter tighten it up on my truck this gets torqued to 20 foot pounds i just use this small one-quarter inch ratchet and that's pretty much as hard as i could pull upwards with one hand and that's good all we have to do is bleed this brake system and we are done so there's our banjo bolt right above it usually at the highest point of the caliper we have our bleeder valve what we're going to do is we're going to gravity bleed it right now so that just means you crack this open so i have a 3 8 inch wrench that i'm just going to crack this open with and i'm just going to open it up just like that might want to get a paper towel and put it below so what's happening right now is just because of gravity the brake fluid is filling up the cylinder you have to remember that the brake line is up here the master cylinder is all the way up there so gravity is just gonna force that brake fluid out and into this so we're just gonna wait for this to leak and once this leaks i'll close it up and i'll bleed it it also helps to loosen up the master cylinder cap to let air in so that it bleeds out faster just like that once i open the cap it bleeds pretty quickly so close that off remember brake fluid is super corrosive it'll damage rubber it'll damage paint so i always try to clean it up right away make sure it's not on anything now we should check our brake fluid levels since we've lost a little but this looks good so let's bleed the brakes so now here's the bleeder that i made it's a self bleeder i'm going to show you how to make this in another video so if you want to see how to make this i'll put the link to that video in the description below and i'm also not going to go crazy explaining how to bleed brakes if you don't know how to do it then check out my other video on how to bleed brakes and that'll also be in the description below now if you want you don't need this fancy setup you could just have somebody press on the brakes as you crack that open i just do this because i'm doing this by myself so i made a one-man bleeder so i'm just going to crack this bleeder valve open and then go in the car and press on the brakes okay good i can see there's bubbles in here it's getting forced out i'm gonna keep bleeding until i don't see any bubbles here okay there are no more bubbles so i'm gonna just close off that bleeder valve the good thing is all the brake fluid gets caught over here and the bubbles bubble out so when i close off this bleeder valve there's no air getting trapped and one last thing since we just bled the brakes go check the master cylinder you can see this is a little bit low so i'm just gonna add some more fluid till it goes to the max full line good before you go on a test drive make sure you pump your brakes to make sure that there's no air in them you'll feel like they're soft or they go to the floor if you didn't bleed them right if you didn't bleed them right just go ahead and bleed them again until that brake pedal feels firm and remember where your emergency brake is make sure there's nobody behind you or in front of you when you're testing the system out don't go fast to start make sure your car breaks and then check for leaks those are just some safety precautions that i would take hopefully this video was helpful if it was give it a thumbs up also consider subscribing up on the screen are going to be some videos you can click on the video on the screen or you can find a link to those videos in the description below also in description below are the links to the chris fix facebook and twitter pages check it out

Channel: ChrisFix

Views: 4,030,185

Keywords: How to install a brake caliper, How to change brake caliper, pads and rotors, Brake caliper rebuild, How To diagnose and replace a bad brake caliper, How to remove and replace a disc brake caliper, Disc Brake (Invention), How-to (Website Category), brake caliper replacement, brake caliper installation, Brake caliper replacement, ford ranger brake caliper, ford brake caliper, mazda brake caliper, ford explorer brake caliper, Ford Ranger (Automobile Model)

Id: nbdJGCi29nQ

Length: 12min 28sec (748 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 08 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/marcstov]

CF is my hero