Well, I am finally getting around to actually doing some work this Winter. I decided to do the front brakes first since they were disc brakes and easier to do than the drums on the rear (which will be later this Winter). All that I am doing right now is replacing the brake pads and the rotors and I am not overhauling the calipers. Of course for the Winter, I already had the car up on jack stands and the tires are removed as well.

I don't think that you need direction on taking the tires off, so I won't go into that. Anyway, once the car is up and the tire is off, you need to remove the caliper from the disc brakes. The calipers are held on by just 2 bolts that you actually need an allen wrench to get off. Don't ask me why they didn't use normal bolts and why the used allen ones because I have no clue. I does take a bit of force to remove these 2, but once you get them started, they can be unscrewed by hand. These slide out, then you can take the caliper and remove it from the disc and set it up on the control arm to get this out of the way.

You can replace the brake pads now or wait until you are ready to put the caliper back on. Either way you can probably remove the old pads just to get them out of the way. You might also want to use a C-clamp to hold the cylinder in place. You will need it later to open up the cylinder further when you put the new pads on. Now that you have the caliper out of the way, you can start the process of removing the old rotor. There is a cap on the end of the wheel bearing that is there to keep dirt and debris out of the bearing. You can pry this off gently with a screwdriver while being careful not to damage it since you need to put this back on.

Once this cap is off, you will probably see alot of grease in there. You need to clean this off in order to get at the cotter pin and nut that holds on the rotor. Straighten out the cotter pin, remove it, and put it to the side for now. Then you need to remove the nut. It takes a pretty big socket to fit this, luckily I had one

around since I needed it to do the brakes on my Jimmy. Once this nut is removed, there is a washer and a bearing that you need to remove. Once these are gone, you can slide off the rotor. Be gentle with it because you are not done with it yet. Flip over the rotor and there is also a retainer ring and a bearing on the back. You will notice that when you remove both the front washer and bearing and the back retainer ring and bearing that there is tons of grease in here.

Gently pry off the retainer ring and remove that and the back bearing. Unless you bought new bearings and rings, I suggest you save these to put back on. Ok, now you can start cleaning the area around what you just dismantled to get ready to put everything back together. Start by greasing up the inside of the new rotor. Don't worry about putting too much grease in there because you can always clean the excess of when you put the new rotor on. Now place the rear bearing back into place and use a rubber mallet to put the retaing ring back on. Before you put the rotor back on, you need to clean the back of the rotor. Usually these come shipped with a light coating of oil on the for protection. It might be good for protection, but it is not good for stopping. So clean the back of the rotor and slide it back on making sure you done get the back of the rotor dirty with your greasy hands. Once that is back on, slide on the front bearing and washer.

Now you can screw the nut back on and put the cotter pin back into place. Clean off any excess grease from the area and then place the cap back on. Now with your new rotor in place, clean off the front of the rotor with brake cleaner like you did the back. Now you are ready to put back in the new brake pads and re-assemble the caliper. On the old brake pads (hopefully you didn't hrow these out yet) there is a metal clip on the back of the inside brake pad which is your wear indicator. This is the peice that makes the loud squealing when your brake pads are worn down. Remove this from the old pads and place it on the new set. Pry open the caliper cylider with the C-clamp and a pair of channel locks. Be careful not to damage any parts. It helps to use a rag over the channel locks to prevent this. Once you have open this up wider, place the new pads in place. Now you are ready to slide the caliper back over the new rotor and re-attach it with the 2 bolts that you took off in the beginning. Tighten these bolts down as hard as you can. Since you didn't remove any brake lines in this process, there is no need to bleed the brakes. Instead, get in the car and pump the brakes a few times until the tighten up. This will close the caliper cylinder back on the rotor. And that is it. Put the tire back on and you're done.