Write-Up: OEM Front Brakes Pad & Rotor Maintenance

Hello all i just reciently install a new set of pads and rotors on the 95. This was my first time tackling this type of task but all seems successful. I replaced the rotors with Brembo's on the front(27038) and rear (27157), and Akebono Pro Act pads (ACT623 Front) & (ACT 714) Rear. It cost about $217.99 including shipping from Drivewire.com. I plan on creating a write up with pictures for the front since i couldnt find one, but for now here it is without the pictures.

1, Remove lug nuts and wheel.
2 Unscrew both Hex socket (Allen) screws holding the front caliper.
3. I wedged off the caliper and popped the old pads off
4 Let the caliper hang and remove the brass lockers holding the rotor on and remove the rotor
5. Install new rotor and brass retainers if you wish
6. You need to compress the piston, I used a giant C-clamp and did it without bleeding the brakes and I did it by hand.
7. Clip in new pads and slide over the rotor. Might need to use a little force but be carefull not to mess up the new pads.
8. Line up the caliper and screw it back in place.
9. Install the wheel and lugs and repeat on the other side.

I decided to do front and rear all at one time, Took me 2.5 hrs, and this was my first time ever changing brakes. I did have a lift so i dissasemble all 4 and then re assemble starting with the rears and worked my way up front.
Note: I did not bleed any of the brakes and just compressed the pistons on all calipers, be carefull because my brake reservoir overflowed slighty. u might want to drain or syphon a little out.

How does your brake fluid look? When it gets old and filled with moisture it can rust your braking system from the inside out. You might want to go ahead and upgrade to DOT-4.

maggot wrote:

Hello all i just reciently install a new set of pads and rotors on the 95. This was my first time tackling this type of task but all seems successful. I replaced the rotors with Brembo's on the front(27038) and rear (27157), and Akebono Pro Act pads (ACT623 Front) & (ACT 714) Rear. It cost about $217.99 including shipping from Drivewire.com. I plan on creating a write up with pictures for the front since i couldnt find one, but for now here it is without the pictures.

1, Remove lug nuts and wheel.
2 Unscrew both Hex socket (Allen) screws holding the front caliper.
3. I wedged off the caliper and popped the old pads off
4 Let the caliper hang and remove the brass lockers holding the rotor on and remove the rotor
5. Install new rotor and brass retainers if you wish
6. You need to compress the piston, I used a giant C-clamp and did it without bleeding the brakes and I did it by hand.
7. Clip in new pads and slide over the rotor. Might need to use a little force but be carefull not to mess up the new pads.
8. Line up the caliper and screw it back in place.
9. Install the wheel and lugs and repeat on the other side.

I decided to do front and rear all at one time, Took me 2.5 hrs, and this was my first time ever changing brakes. I did have a lift so i dissasemble all 4 and then re assemble starting with the rears and worked my way up front.
Note: I did not bleed any of the brakes and just compressed the pistons on all calipers, be carefull because my brake reservoir overflowed slighty. u might want to drain or syphon a little out.

thanks for posting and congratulations on tackling your first brake job.

You might have benefitted from some of the brake write ups and comments on this site

I'm not your boss so don't take the following personally:

- never let the calipers hang by the lines - at least not on these cars. Tends to nick the lines at the point on which the fittings are swaged on; if they are weakened enough they will fail suddenly under hard braking I am told. There is no "Good" time for a brake failure but if you are braking hard you are braking panicked and a failure at that time would be that much worse.... anyway... What you *can* do is bend a wire coat hanger to hold the calipers while you work. Grab the hanger by the hook and the middle of the long straight bottom and pull sharply (don't cut yourself). It will elongate into a diamond shape. Fold the bottom of the diamond up to become a cradle for the caliper. Hook the hanger hook over one of the coils on the coilsprings or into a hole in the chassis, then hang the caliper from the cradle.

- for a brake job this extensive you should consider changing the brake fluid. If your brake fluid is dark like black coffee you def should change it all out. DOT3 gets darker as it takes on moisture from the air. You will find instructions for making a power bleeder elsewhere on this site. It will make the job much easier. Consider converting to a synthetic DOT3 or DOT3/4 fluid.

- Consider using Loctite Blue (removable) or a better threadlocker on those caliper bolts - chassis vibrations on these cars tends to make them back out sometimes. Loctite them and torque to spec they will stay.

- If you compressed the rear brakes with a c-clamp only, odds are you now have two bad wheel cylinders. The parking brake selfadjuster on the rears is built into the caliper, and in order to back it out right you have to use a tool to screw the caliper back in - if you forced it in most likely you messed it up and you now have a pretty serious but hidden problem. Unless somebody put a different style caliper on *your* rears before you got to 'em. I don't know, but if not then you have a problem but you just don't know it yet.

- Last item - a question - do you now have a vibration while driving at 50 MPH or faster?

Do tell

Albertj

Thanks for the info, Chris. Feel free to post some pics. Anything you have on rear brakes, please post it here:

https://rivperformance.editboard.com/brakes-suspension-f6/write-up-replacing-rear-rotors-and-pads-lots-of-pics-t631.htm

Ok, first, Jack the R, i think my brake fluid looks ok, a while back my brake booster failed and they replaced it along with a flush of the system. ( this was before i found this site and was into fixiing my car myself) I dont know what type of fluid was put back in. this was about two years ago, I'm sure they just put in what came stock. Next, as for letting the calipers hang i just did as i saw, and what ppl told me, they said it would be alright hanging, and i have seen mechanic shops just let them hang, so i just did the same. I now know for the future NOT to let them hang. Next, i didnt think about loctiting the screws, but i will next time i get it on the lift. As for the rears i did not make myself clear. I used the write up i found here for the rears and i did NOT compress them with a c -clamp, i only used this on the front. I carefully used needle nose to turn the piston on the rears. Finally for the last item, i have absolutly no vibration at any speed! Any reson I might? Thanks guys for all your help!

maggot wrote:

Ok, first, Jack the R, i think my brake fluid looks ok, a while back my brake booster failed and they replaced it along with a flush of the system. ( this was before i found this site and was into fixiing my car myself) I dont know what type of fluid was put back in. this was about two years ago, I'm sure they just put in what came stock. Next, as for letting the calipers hang i just did as i saw, and what ppl told me, they said it would be alright hanging, and i have seen mechanic shops just let them hang, so i just did the same. I now know for the future NOT to let them hang. Next, i didnt think about loctiting the screws, but i will next time i get it on the lift. As for the rears i did not make myself clear. I used the write up i found here for the rears and i did NOT compress them with a c -clamp, i only used this on the front. I carefully used needle nose to turn the piston on the rears. Finally for the last item, i have absolutly no vibration at any speed! Any reson I might? Thanks guys for all your help!

sounds good and thanks for posting the corrections - clears up a lot.

if you're writing instructions for others - the ones you *write* should be complete, or refer to ones that are, in order to build and preserve a good rep for yourself.

As for the vibration, good that you don't. There are a number of resons for vibrations, includign mistorquing the lug nuts - and since you don't have the problem I sure won't dwell on it!

As for the brake fluid, it's just that we've got each others back so to speak. If the brake fluid gets and stays too "wet" it kills the ABS pump. They are pricey IF you can find one. Don't want that to happen to you or any other Editboard member. So in this case part of the right thing to do is dwell on the brake fluid thing.

Albertj

I'm looking at my front brakes today - I've got a feeling these rotors have had it -





I'm also having a LOT of trouble getting the caliper off -



I thought maybe I'd made a mistake by doing this with the parking brake on, but I read earlier in this thread that the parking brake is in the back (where I thought it would be when I started, but I got to wondering when I couldn't pull the caliper). I guess I should just manhandle this thing off but I thought it'd be smarter to check and be sure first.

What do you guys think?

The rotors look a bit worn, but they should still work fine. Only way to know for sure is measure with a micrometer and check with spec. If there are no grooves, and braking surface isn't warped, you should be okay. If there's no judder when you brake, there may be some life left in the rotors. Those pictures do not scream "bad rotor surface" to me.

You need to remove the caliper bolts, which are different than the slide pins. They are the bigger bolts tucked behind the calipers. Lots of cars have calipers that are held together by the slide pin bolts, but ours have one pair holding the caliper together, and another pair holding it to the car.

Try removing caliper bolts (15mm I think) and then pulling the floating caliper apart - use a large screwdriver or ratchet handle if needed. Once the caliper is opened up, it should come off easily. The caliper parts should slide fairly easily. If not, you need to pull out the slide pins, inspect, lube, and install new rubber goods.

Aren't those grooves in the 2nd pic a depth indicator? The rotor surface is beneath all of them.

The surface is smooth and brakes well though, no problems there.

From the looks, mine are far worse than yours are (my slots have been erased), but I'm still using them for a while longer. If the brakes work well, it could still have a lot more life. But technically, yes, you should replace if below spec. More for the reason that your caliper pistons have to do a lot more work (longer stroke) with thin rotors than with correct spec. Also, you have a little less metal there to deal with heat in really hard braking conditions.

I'll probably being doing mine this weekend. I've been getting a terrible vibration during braking. One thing though, has anyone ever had a pair of rotors last. The last couple times, I've had to replace my rotors because turning them would result in it being outside tolerance. I think the metal they use nowadays may be the culprit but curious on anyone's experience.

AA wrote:

From the looks, mine are far worse than yours are (my slots have been erased), but I'm still using them for a while longer.

O.K., I probably won't put this at the top of my to-do list then.

What are the torque settings on all these bolts I'm pulling?

AA, I couldn't find any extra bolts. My calipers were only held on by the slide pins -



The piston was clamped down on the pad so hard I had to use a crowbar to get the caliper off. Dunno why that was.

Anywho, the pads themselves look o.k. -

Sounds like your caliper piston may be frozen. It should push back into the bore without too much difficulty.

I generally use a large C clamp to compress the caliper piston before I take the caliper off. Makes the rest of the job a lot easier.

the caliper bracket bolts are where the red is. one on top, and one on bottom.


Your pads have plenty of life left in them. rotors dont look too bad either, but you cant tell for sure unless you take a micrometer to them. .5mm can make all the difference

playa wrote:

One thing though, has anyone ever had a pair of rotors last. The last couple times, I've had to replace my rotors because turning them would result in it being outside tolerance.

From experience you get what you pay for with the rotors. dealer iron rotors seem to last the longest on an otherwise stock car with someone who drives normal.
I use my brakes enough to need track rotors/pads. I've tried several combos and right now i am the happiest with hawk HPS and powerslot directional rotors with f-bodys. this is the first set i have not had heat/stress cracks in after only a few months. hope they last at least 30k miles, and from what i hear about them they will.

The "inexpensive" chinese rotors you can buy for $25 a piece are usually about .015 over spec. Normal driving over the life of the rotor will wear far more than that, hence leading to replacement at each brake job. These also have a tendency to warp (excessive LRO) prematurely. I've gone through 3 sets of rotors in the rear with the same set of pads in the last 2 years (warping). Acceptable LRO is .002, anything beyond that you will feel....Say you have .003 LRO, you would have to machine that rotor at least .006 to correct this, and now that rotor is close to spec, and going to warp again.
I guess what I'm getting at is.....spend the extra bucks on a good set of rotors....

Mr.Riviera wrote:

the caliper bracket bolts are where the red is. one on top, and one on bottom.

Wait, what's this light bulb over my head? The caliper itself splits apart, and then you take it off? Is that a normal design?

Just took a look at an F-body caliper, they sure don't look like they split apart.

Can't find any extra bolts on the caliper All I see is the thing circled in blue. What is it?

That's the cover over the bleeder screw.

It looks like you did everything right removing the caliper. Sometimes it sticks a little bit and you may have to use a c clamp to squeeze the piston back in a little bit before you can slide the caliper out. On my brake pads, there are little metal things that prevent the caliper from sliding out. You have to compress it a little bit to allow enough room. You really only have to remove one of the caliper bolts if you are only changing the pads. It will just rotate and allow enough room to remove the brake pads. The red line in Matt's picture is for the caliper bracket bolt on the car. It kind of looks like an arrow, but it is showing where the bolt attaches the bracket to the car. If you want to remove the brake rotors, you have to remove the caliper bracket bolt.

RickW - Gotcha. I've lubed everything and put the brake back together, still no sign of this second set of bolts

98riv - If the 2nd set of bolts is for the caliper bracket, o.k., that makes sense.

I figured I might as well lube the top bolt while I was at it, no big deal.

JR,
If you were removing the calipers to just check them out and the condition of pads, rotor's etc. How come you haven't installed the F-Body calipers yet and start with all new, rebuilt stuff.
They won't last forever in a box somewhere. Eventually you will have to disassemble those calipers to replace seals if they dry rot.
It could take many years before that happens but why not install them this summer.
All you need is the longer brake hoses. Recommend the Bonneville stainless braided hoses from ZZP.
Fronts only are / were $50.00, full set, front and back (which i did and highly recommend) are / were $100.00.
I priced out regular stock rubber hoses for the Riviera (Raybestos) at my local parts store and they were the same price and front's would still be too short.
So it looks like all you need to do to install the F-Body calipers is to get some proper length brake lines and possibly modifying your bracket by having it drilled and tapped to fit the OEM bolt or just install as I sent it to you.
With the amount of miles you drive and the way you drive, I wouldn't worry at all about the brackets with the bushings.
I ran mine that way for about 7 - 8,000 miles without a problem and even after removing them at that mileage point i saw no wear or reason for changing them.
The only reason i pursued a set of modified brackets was due to the experience of a few that had problems. Yet upon further investigation i find that they had put many more miles on and possibly used the brakes much more aggressively than i do.

What it boils down to is, business is slow and $100 (for longer brake lines) buys a lot of wood. While business is slow I like to be knocking out the home repair jobs that take a lot of time to do.

That said, I wasn't aware of the dry rot issue, or I would have made the F-body brakes a higher priority.

What do you guys think of the condition of my brake fluid?