If You See This, Stop Driving and Pray

rev up your engines now if you're driving 5560 you hit the brakes hard and your steering wheel starts shaking that normally means your front brake rotors are warped so when you hit them they're going in and out a little bit at a time that makes the steering wheel shake and conversely if you hit your brakes going 60 and the brake pedal starts pulsating that generally means the back rotors are worn now in this case it's the front wheel you hit the brakes at about 60 the front steering wheel shakes so we're gonna check the front ones first now before we pull the wheel off we're gonna check the suspension because if your tire rods or ball joints are worn and it really wobbles you're at the brakes that can make the steering shake too so we'll grab it at nine and three no play there and a 12 and six no play there so there's nothing really worn here we'll do the rotors first now if you want you can actually measure this with the vernier caliper but i can feel that it's all warped and it's not even anymore so we're going to take off the rotors put on new rotors and pads now we're going to turn the wheel all to the right so we can access the bolts better we can take off the bottom bolt here that comes off then the whole thing flips up and you can slide it away then there's two bolts inside one on the top one on the bottom we take those off to get the whole caliper assembly off as you can see they just come right off the bottom one then the top one and top one doesn't have room for my air impact so i got a giant bar and a socket and i'm taking that one off by hand because there's not enough working room for my ring but there's plenty of room for this it just takes more time then once you remove that bolt the whole assembly will come off off it comes this is supposed to slip off but it's so old and rusty it is 21 years old we're gonna hit this with a sledgehammer we're throwing it away anyway get a big hammer give it a few whacks off it comes then you put new rotors on and here's a trick now the factory rotors they always work fine but they're a lot more expensive you don't want to buy the absolute cheapest rotors you can get your hands on because a lot of times they'll warp so you might want to look at good mid-priced ones like this you can see it's got all the vent holes and everything in it solid steel you don't want to get a cheap one that maybe doesn't have the vents but you don't have to buy the factory ones these cost about three-quarters of what the factory ones do and they work perfectly fine and while you're at it get some brake clean they coat these things with an anti-rusting coating you want to get it off so you want to spray both sides to get all that off then wipe any residue off then slide the new rotor on fits right on then get your brake caliper bracket put it over the holes and get the bolts to hold it in place you gotta wear them around a little into the bottom one make sure they're started then you can get them nice and tight with an extension bar and a sock you don't want them coming loose you want them nice and tight now before you put the caliper on you want to squeeze it back in you squeeze like mad and then it goes in then you get your brake pads get some braking caliper grease and put a little on the top where it binds in the bottom and slide them in here you gotta kind of twist them then they snap in place there's one then we snap this one in on the inside then it just snaps right on and that slides right over and you bolt it back on then turn the wheel and put the tire back on this particular car's a fancy wheel so don't forget the spacer the spacer goes inside here tamp it in then put the wheel on and of course do the other side so we'll pull it here no play in here no play sell the tie rods the ball joints are okay that will just pull off this side do the brakes on this side it's the same exact process as the other side like that got the big whacker this one's on harder turn it a little [Music] there stupid things off then put the new rotor on and the caliper bracket get it nice and tight then put the brake pads on remember to lube the lips and then slide it on at an angle then push it in place and remember to squeeze the caliper back in now it's back in its hole now this pin is sticking a little down here so we'll hit it sometimes they will stick then bolt the bottom on line up the wheel studs nice and tight but before you start driving pump the brakes now they'll go all the way to the floor until you pump them a few times now they're nice and hard when you squeeze the calipers that loses pressure so you got to pump it up most of these cars have squealer pads you can see this little metal prong here and when that little metal prong touches the rotors it'll squeal that means instead of being thick and new like this the pads are so thin that it's time to change them so you heard that squirrely grinding noise first thing you want to do is pull off a wheel see if they're just worn out so you want to jack it up in the air and have a handy jack stand for safety and pull off the wheel and off the cones now this particular one is 13 millimeter we go to the back side and there's a little bolt here we'll just stick it on and then whack it off it comes once you get that bolt off the whole thing flips up there we go now as you can see these are really thick the old ones the new ones aren't much different but he doesn't like the noise that these cheaper ones made so we bought better pads so i'm going to put these pads on but if the customer would have had me inspect it i would have said you don't need front pads and they said while they're making the noise they'll say well you want to put better quality pads the noise will go away but they're thick enough if they've got really thin so that they were thin as say a nickel or a dime they'd may change it but hey they're almost as thick as these brand new ones but what the heck i'm gonna put the new ones on because he bought them it's an easy job they just flip out but before we put the new ones in we're going to get some of this breaking caliper grease put a little bit on the ears so when you put them in they slide smoothly it goes down and it goes up in there and it goes right in then we do the other side too and as you can see now there's new ones on each side and we squeeze the piston back in then it just slides down you get your little bolt and stick it in make it finger tight then get your 13 millimeter socket wrench and get it nice and tight i put the wheel back on then as you can see it spins freely it's not dragging or anything now of course you're going to do the right front too because you do them in pairs but we're going to do that last now we're going to check the rear so jack up the rear sticking the jack stand off it comes now in this case it's so bad you can see the rotors all eating up the pads are down to the metal and the rotors are eating up so the custom was smart he'd already bought the rotors and the brake pads so we're going to replace both the pants and the rotor because it's all worn out and chewed up it's rusted out anyways i'm assuming this is a northern car at some point in time as i pull it off you can see super thin there's hardly anything left here and it's all grooved and worn we're gonna have to replace this old rotor but to get that off we have to unbolt the caliper mounting brackets now these can be absolute stinkers to go out so i got a big 18 millimeter wrench and a hammer we're gonna whack them off it's not tight that one just hit it it's moving slowly but surely that's coming loose now we're going to do the top one it's up higher same thing we'll whack it when it's starting to move you can then use the socket which is faster as you can see it's going to be a lot faster there's one and a crows are watching today off it comes now we're going to get this off which could be a stinker you can see it's rusted on but we get the old hammer man it's on there this is going to be fun so get out the lwd40 spray it all around here each one of these let's soak a little then we'll start whacking i can see it moving a little so we're gonna move this and do it bit by bit now we'll hit another part we get the elk clunker off before we go any further let's see if the new one fits right well it's not rusted it fits perfect great now they caught these things with anti-rust so we'll clean that off do the outside we'll take it off do the inside wipe it all off and put it on then we'll get the two mounting bolts stick them in the back here and then wiggle this until they start going in there's one stick that one in get them nice and tight all i have to say for you northern mechanics i feel sorry for you having to deal with this rusty crap all the time now i grew up there i remember it but that was in the long past i like the nice texas rust free cars myself and of course you squeeze this caliper back in squeeze it in yeah then turn to the other one skill brake caliper grace put it on the ears slip them in and slide it back down the tiny bolt stick it on the back side and remember it'll slip so you got to put this back on on the inside and just put the wheel back on now i'm not going to film the other side because it's exactly the same left and right side let's hope the right rear one isn't as stuck as the left rear one but it probably is that's how it goes with northern cars on many cars like this lexus the wheels have holes in them so you can look inside with a flashlight and see how thick they are and in this case they're pretty thick so you really don't need to change them but here's the kicker well that little metal squealer can break off then you won't hear any noise until the metal gets down to the metal and it's too late so once you're that squeaking it's a good idea to test them to make sure that they're not thin and it's just time to change the pad a lot of times car brakes will just squeak because discs are open to the air and the rotors get surface rust because they're steel and they'll often make little noises now and then and if you pull them off and you see that hey there's plenty of brake pad left a lot of guys will just live with that and realize that as they age some brakes just make squeaky noises now as a tip to stop squeaking noises my advice is buy high quality brake pads i personally found that the akebono ake bono it's a japanese company pads are the best i've had customers that even gouged their rotors with their old pads but they didn't want to spend much money on their own car because it was a junker so all i did was put on akebono pads and they didn't make any noise at all after that so they're very good pads now the next common thing that goes wrong with brakes is you step on the brake pedal but it sinks to the floor maybe not all the time but some of the time now there's three things that can do that when you step on the brake pedal there's a rod that goes through the firewall and then under the hood of the car the rod pushes the brake master cylinder that sends pressurized fluid to all the wheels so the most common reason that you step on your brake pedal and goes to the floor is that there's a leak in the system somewhere so first you go to each wheel you look at the caliper see if it's wet and it's leaking it's got a rubber hose the rubber hose can leak and then you check each wheel that way to see if there's fluid leaking now brake fluid is clear and it's very slimy so if you want to make sure it's the right stuff just get some put a little on your fingers you'll see it's real slippery and you see that leak and then you got to fix that leaking area now external leaks are pretty easy to find you're going to see the area leaking it'll be all wet but sometimes the brakemaster cylinders themselves go bad but they go bad like a bad heart valve it can leak inside itself you won't see anything leaking in that case you really have to take the brake master cylinder off and if you see that the back side the seal's wet it means it's leaking or sometimes they just leak internally and they don't make any pressure in that case you just get another brakemaster cylinder and install if it's not the master then it starts to get complicated it could be the brake booster back here is the brake booster it's what boosts power to give you power brakes and when the booster goes bad you can get a pedal that goes to the floor but here's a classic way of testing it if the engine is turned off in the car and you step on the brake and it's nice and hard but then you start up the car and then hit the brakes and they go to the floor whoa that's a great way of testing if the booster is bad when the car is running and the booster has all its boost pressure and then the pedal sinks it means that the booster has gone bad but there is one scenario in modern cars if your brake sinks to the floor that can be really complex and expensive to fix and that's anti-lock braking systems they are very complex braking systems you can see the brake pressure that comes to the master cylinder goes to this gigantic solenoid that has valves it's computer run the wheels have abs sensor that measure how fast the wheels are turning and the computer reads the speed that the car is going to see if all wheels are stopping at the same speed or if one is stopping less as the other ones it will modulate how the brakes break so you don't pull to one side or the other and then when this system breaks down you have to have a very complicated computer like this launch x431 that i have the professional mechanics use we have to analyze the abs system check all the actuators check the speed sensors and a lot of times if you're lucky it will have an abs code and we'll at least get a generic area where the problem is so we can pinpoint what's wrong and fix it but fortunately in most modern cars abs systems are fail safe systems so if your abs system breaks down and your abs light comes on on most cars it will return to normal non-abs braking and you'll be able to stop your car fine it just won't have anti-lock braking capability so if one wheel's in water and one's on dry payment it's going to slide around and i do have to say a lot of my customers when i analyze an abs problem they find out they need a new modulator and a modulator is like fifteen hundred dollars a lot of them will say well i'll just live without abs and just have normal breaks and even if say somebody told you you needed a modulator you can't really replace it yourself because to bleed the air out of them you need one of these computers that has various steps that opens and closes the solenoids to get the air out of the system and if you're putting a new one in the new one's going to be full of air and it can be a real job even one of these sometimes it takes three or four hours to get all the air out of the system and my last tip is this speaking of air in the system a lot of guys will say oh i need to bleed my brakes i have air in the system well bleeding your brakes if no work was done on a car isn't going to really fix anything because if there's air in the system there's a reason there's air in the system maybe the master cylinder sucking air maybe you got a leak in a hose and when you take your foot off the brake it sucks air in but if you do have air in your system you want to find out why and fix it don't think that bleeding it out is going to fix anything by itself so if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos remember to ring that bell you

Channel: Scotty Kilmer

Views: 310,979

Keywords: auto, auto repair, car, car diy, car repair, cars, diy, how to, mechanic, repair, scotty kilmer, car review, brake, brake life hacks, brake pad, brake pads, brake problems, brake repair, brakes, car advice, car life hacks, doing this, how to fix brakes on a car, how to make brakes stop squeaking, how to make brakes stronger, last longer, life hack, life hacks, long lasting brakes, 4 signs your brakes have a serious problem, brake problem, how to fix brake problems

Id: Wp3qGWEEMnU

Length: 16min 11sec (971 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 02 2021