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Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
With the vehicle on the ground, I'm going to use a breaker bar and a 22 millimeter socket to loosen the lug nuts. Raise and support your vehicle with a jack and jack stands. We're using our two-post lift. Use the socket to finish removing the lug nuts. Take a couple of lug nuts and just thread them on lightly. Use a dead blow or a rubber mallet, hit on the tire. It'll knock it free. The lug nuts will keep the wheel from falling off. Now it's loose. See. Finish taking the lug nuts off. It's going to support it so doesn't fall.
Let me grab the hub and knuckle and just turn it out this way so it's a little easier to see what I'm doing. Take a large flat bladed screwdriver and kind of wedge it in here. We're going to pull the brake caliper out and press the pistons. This way when I go to remove the caliper slide bolts, the caliper will come off the pistons easier.
There's 13 millimeter bolts on the bottom and the top, going to remove these using a 13 millimeter box wrench and break them free. Put these bolts aside to reuse them. Slide the caliper off. Just rest it like that. Grab a bungee cord. That gets it right there. I just don't want it to hang on this rubber hose. You can damage it.
Our brake pads, pretty well worn, just kind of slide them out of the hardware. If they don't want to come out that easily, you can just use the flat blade screwdriver to pop them out. I'm not worried about damaging the surface of them because I'm going to replace them. We need to remove the bottom and top caliper mounting bolts. They are 21 millimeter. I'm using a large ratchet to break them free. Before I take that one all the way out, break this one free. I'll hold on the bracket, take the bolt out, and pull the whole bracket out.
You need to remove the screw that's holding the rotor to the hub. It's a T-30 Torx bit. Pull that out. Reuse it. See if this comes free. Nope, rusted there. Let's spray some rust penetrant in here, a little bit in here, and try to work it down between the rotor and the hub. It can go around the wheel studs. Thread on the lug nut. I don't want the rotor to fall, but not all the way. I want to have it so it has some space to move, and I'll take a dead blow and just knock the rotor. It might take one hit, could take a bunch of hits. You just got to do it till it comes free. We're replacing these rotors, so I'm not too worried about damaging them.
Here's our original pad rotors from our vehicle and our brand new ones from 1aauto.com. They're an exact match for the originals. You can see how worn out these are compared to the new ones. They've got the same wear indicator in them, same bolt pattern, and same screw hole opening. These will fit great and work great on our vehicle. Then clean and reuse our caliper hardware, it's stainless and just needs to be cleaned up.
Use some brake parts cleaner, a wire brush, and a rag. You can also check your slide pins to make sure they're operating. They should pull out with some resistance but move in and out nice and smoothly. These ones do. We're going to leave them alone. No need to take them out and grease them. Just take some brake parts cleaner. Spray it down. Use a wire brush. Then also clean it down with a rag. Do the same for both sides. We could reuse our caliper mounting bolts. We just need to clean off the old thread locker, so I'm going to use some brake parts cleaner. Spray it down, and the wire brush, clean up both of them. Just make sure you get it all off of there.
If you have access to it, you can use a 14 by two thread dye. And we'll thread this in here and we'll clean the threads out. But the other method, you can just use a wire brush. That should thread in pretty easily. You may need to put a sock on it, but it will clean all the junk out of the threads. That's our old thread locker out of there. You can see it's all in the dye now. Put the rotor on backwards. Clean down the oil that they're packed in so they don't flash rust. Use brake parts cleaner. Wipe off any excess from the rag. Put the rotor over.
If your hub was extremely rusty, now it would be the time to clean it. Take a wire brush and clean this all off. This one's in good shape. I'm going to leave it alone. Now I'll line up the threaded hole here with the opening in the rotor. That's for the retention screw. That right in place. Install the screw. Just tighten it down. It's not a lot of torque. It's just to hold the rotor in place while you work. Then clean out the front of the rotor.
Same thing, it's packaged with the oil to prevent it from flash rusting. Before I reinstall the bracket, I'm going to take some medium strength threadlocker and apply it to the threads of the caliper bracket bolts. Do this to both of them. Reinstall the bracket. Get it lined up. I'm going to get the top one caught first. I may need to move the bracket around, thread it in my hand. We can use a socket to tighten it down. Then torque the caliper bracket bolts to 129 foot-pounds. When it clicks, you've reached the correct torque.
Make sure that the brake pad surface is nice and clean, has no grease or dirt on it. Just going to give it a light spray with some brake parts cleaner, don't need to soak it. Apply some brake caliper grease to the ears. The brake pad with the wear indicator will go on the inside. The outside curve will match the outside curve of the rotor. Switch hands here. I'm going to slide it right into the clips. Just pull them into place. Do the same thing for the other pad.
I'm using a large C-clamp and an old brake pad. We need to compress the two pistons back into the caliper. You don't need to crack the bleeder screw. We don't need to remove the brake line. You may have some fluid come out at the master cylinder because if there's too much fluid in the system, it has come down to fill up the extra space that is left by having these pistons this far out and these pads worn down.
You may have to go up and take some out of the master cylinder, or you'll have some spill out and you'll just have to clean it up. We're going to compress this in, just turn. I've taken it off of the bungee cord. I'm just going to gently turn this in. Little by little these pistons will start to retract. The reasons why we have to compress these pistons because these new pads are a lot thicker and you won't be able to get the caliper back on if the pistons are all the way out.
You can also see these are going in nice and easy. That tells me the caliper's in good shape and the pistons aren't seized. The pad is starting to get down. I can see the seals are starting to squish out. That's about as far as I need to go. I don't need to go all the way in, so I'm going to remove this. Put that aside and clamp out of here. Don't forget your bungee cord that's hanging on the suspension. Get rid of that.
The caliper can go back on to the bracket. The slide pins do have a flat spot. It's going to match the flat spot on the calipers. You need to turn them, both the top and the bottom. Don't look so good. That will sit in place. Reinstall the bolts. Torque the caliper slide pin bolts to 47 foot-pounds. Once it clicks, it's exactly where it needs to be. You don't need to go any further.
Start the lug nuts by hand. I'm going to use the socket, thread these down, re-torque them. Put the vehicle on the ground. Torque the lug nuts in a cross pattern to 140 foot-pounds. Before you start, move the vehicle. Gently press on the brake pedal. This will bring the caliper, the cylinders out that we've compressed to meet the pads, and you'll feel it start to build up pressure. You don't need to smash it to the floor. Just gently pump it until it builds up pressure, just like that.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
Tools used
Hi, I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years! We're dedicated to delivering quality auto parts, expert customer service, and fast and free shipping, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. We've created thousands of videos to help you install our parts with confidence. That saves you time and money, so visit us at 1AAuto.com, your trusted source for quality auto parts.
In this video, we're going to be working with our 2012 GMC Acadia. We're going to be showing you how to remove and replace your front brakes. We're doing this on the passenger side, but the process will be the same on the driver's side. We always recommend you replace these in a pair, as well as wearing a dust mask when you're working on it, as the old pads are going to be full of rust and corrosion and brake dust that you don't want to breathe in while you're working.
If you like this video, please click subscribe. We have a ton more information on this and many other vehicles. If you need these parts for your car, you can follow the link down in the description over to 1AAuto.com.
Here are the items you'll need for this repair: 13-22mm socket, wrenches, ratchet, socket extension, breaker bar, pry bar, torque wrench, T30 Torx bit, flat head screwdriver, hammer, wire brush, groovelock pliers, brake cleaner, grease, bungee cord, jack and jack stands, gloves, dust mask, and safety glasses.
Loosen your lug nuts using a twenty-two millimeter deep socket and a breaker bar. Raise and support your vehicle. You can do this with a jack and jack stands at home, but we're going to put it up on a lift to make it easier to show. Once you have your vehicle in the air, you can finish removing your lug nuts. Remove the wheel and tire.
Brace your lug studs with a pry bar so we can turn a rotor screw out with a T30 Torx bit and a ratchet. Once you get it cracked loose, you should be able to take that pry bar out of the way and just spin the rest out nice and easy. Now this screw isn't critical to how your brakes function, it's just designed to hold the rotor upright while we work on the rest of the brake components. It is nice to have, so be sure to keep it close.
Using a 13mm socket and a ratchet, we'll remove the two caliper slide bolts on the back of the caliper. Be sure to loosen both of them before removing either one fully, or when you go to turn the other one, you can cause the caliper to twist around and it makes it a lot more difficult to remove. Keep a hand on there when you take the last bolt out so it doesn't fall and risk tearing that brake line. Work the caliper off, and using a bungee cord, mechanic's wire, or a zip tie, go ahead and secure the caliper up and out of the way.
Go ahead and pull the brake pads out. You may find this to go a little easier with the help of a small, flat blade screwdriver. We're going to use a 21mm socket and a breaker bar to break these caliper bracket bolts here loose. Again, this is another bolt that you're going to want to make sure you get both of them cracked loose before you remove either one fully. Otherwise, when we were to try to crack this loose with the top out, the whole caliper bracket would roll out and make it more difficult to remove. We'll go ahead and switch over to a 21mm socket and ratchet. Remove the caliper bracket from the spindle.
Now, our rotor isn't going to just pull off. What you can do is: if you aren't going to save the rotor, which we don't recommend you do anytime you change the brake pads. We recommend you do the rotors as well because you can see we have this rust buildup here. While you can get them machined, that usually brings them down so close to the factory limit that they get hot and warp more easily. If you are changing your rotors, you can hit it forward right on the rotor surface to break the rust loose. If you want to save them for some reason, you can hit here, very careful not to hit the studs, to release the rust.
Here we have our old parts that we removed from our vehicle, and our new parts from 1AAuto.com. As you can see, these parts are exactly the same. We have the same six lug bolt pattern on our rotors. We have the same beveled hole here for our rotor screw. The brake pads are exactly the same size and shape. We even have a new audible pad indicator here, or a brake squealer, which is going to hit your rotor when your pads start to wear down to the point that it's time to change them. That will start to squeak against the rotor and give you an audible heads-up that it's time to get a brake service. The rotors are the same thickness. These actually are a little bit thicker, because they haven't been worn down like the old ones have here.
It's still a nice vented rotor, which is going to help dissipate the heat generated when braking. They're the same on the backside as well. If your old brakes are worn out, glazed, squealing, grinding, or you have rust buildup, or a warped rotor causing a vibration in the pedal, these new parts from 1A Auto are going to go in direct fit, just like your original equipment. Get your vehicle stopping short and safe, just like it should, and fix you up right.
Again, anytime that you're going to be doing something that kicks up dust and debris when working on a vehicle, we recommend you wear a dust mask. Now, this hub isn't too bad, but we always clean them just to make sure that everything's nice when we put our new parts on. Use a steel wire brush to remove all that dirt and debris, all this rust buildup from the hub, so we can put a coat of grease on there and make sure we don't have to fight our rotor off on our next brake job, like we just had to here. Once you've removed all the debris from your hub surface, go ahead and apply a thin coat of grease to the flat portion and around the center bore here to make sure that we don't have anymore corrosion buildup, and that our rotors come right off by hand next time we have to do our brakes.
You always want to clean your brake caliper carrier whenever you take it off. Make sure it gets some nice, fresh grease on it to remove any old corrosion and buildup that's going to make our new brake parts not work smoothly. All we got to do here is peel the boot back off of the slide. Take the slide out. Wipe the old grease off with a paper towel or a clean rag. Give it a quick check that there are no nicks or burrs anywhere on it, no rust buildup. Just nice and clean and smooth. Just take a little bit of brake grease, dab on our finger. We’ll just apply a thin layer of that nice, new grease onto our slide to make sure it keeps the moisture and corrosion out, and keeps our new pads and caliper moving nice and smooth. Once that's done, we'll reinstall it into our caliper carrier, and push it in so the boot pops back on, and do the same thing to the other side. Now we'll take our brake hardware off here.
This is just a shim, or an insulator as they call it sometimes, to keep the pad from making noise while it moves. Keep it in there nice and tight. Pop that off. Again, with our steel wire brush, we'll just get in there and remove any corrosion and buildup. Now we will not grease this portion of it. We will take our slide, and this one's not bad, so we can just clean this up with a brush. These are really rusted or cracked anywhere, you can replace them. As long as they clean up nicely, looks like this one will, you can just go ahead and take all that off with your brush.
Once you get all of that buildup off of there, and it is okay to have a little bit, you just want to make sure you get the bulk of it off. We'll go ahead and snap it back into our caliper bracket. Then we'll repeat these steps on the opposite side. Now some people like to grease the slides directly, but I think it's a lot more efficient and a lot neater to grease the pad before we install it into the slides. If you want to do it this way, then just put a little grease on your finger and apply it to the contact surfaces on your slides. Or, when we install our pads, you can do the same thing and just grease the bottom part where it's actually going to contact this metal.
Install your rotor onto the hub backwards. Spray down the contact surface with some brake cleaner. These rotors are stored with a compound called Cosmoline on them to keep them from corroding from the factory. It's slippery, so if you leave it on there your car's not going to brake well until you've burned it all off. Once we've cleaned that side, we'll flip it over. Be sure to line up that beveled hole with the threaded hole here for our rotor screw. Reinstall our rotor the right way, and spray off this surface as well. As I was saying earlier, the rotor screw is not critical to the operation of your brakes. If you've broken it or lost it, it's not the end of the world. However, you can see our rotor hangs on an angle here, which means when we go to install our caliper carrier, our brake pads, and eventually our caliper, this little bit of angle is going to cause us some headache putting it back together. We'll push it back on flat, and with our T30 Torx socket and ratchet, we'll reinstall that screw into our rotor. Now it sits on there nice and flat and straight. It'll make our reassembly go that much smoother.
Reinstall your brake caliper carrier and start your two 21mm bolts in by hand. Tighten them down with your 21mm socket and ratchet. Torque these bolts to 129 foot-pounds. If you didn't grease your slides earlier, grease the ears of your brake pads where they're going to contact the slides. Just a little bit is fine. Then install them into the slides on your caliper carrier.
Using a pair of groove jaw pliers, C-clamps, or a proper brake piston compressor tool, slowly compress the piston back into the caliper. If you do this too fast, you'll see the other one start moving. If it moves too far, you'll actually push it out of the caliper, which makes a big mess and it means we're going to have to bleed our brakes and add a whole lot of trouble to this job. Bring them down until they're all the way flush. If you go too fast, you may have to go back and forth a couple of times just to make sure that both pistons are fully seated before we try to install them over the pads.
Don't forget to apply a thin coat of grease to the back of your pads before installing your caliper. Remove whatever you used to secure your caliper up and out of the way. Make sure that your flex hose is not twisted or kinked anywhere. Reinstall your caliper over the slides, and your two 13mm bolts into the slides. Tighten these up with your 13mm socket and ratchet. Torque the guide pin bolts to 47 foot-pounds.
Reinstall your wheel and tire. Get your lug nuts on as tight as you can. The right way to torque a six lug wheel is to make little triangles, so we'll go like this. We'll go across the wheel, and then we'll make another little triangle this way.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
Tools used
Tools used
Tools used
Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!
Use a breaker bar and a 22 millimeter socket to loosen the lug nuts of the vehicle on the ground. Just go around and loosen them all. Raise and support the vehicle. We're using a two post lift. You can use a jack and jack stands. We'll use a socket to finish removing the lug nuts. Take the wheel and tire off.
Wheel and tire is stuck to the brake rotor. I'll put a lug nut on it and put a second one on the opposite side here just lightly. Take a dead blow. We’ll just break it free. Might take a couple hits, might take one hit. Lug nuts keep it from falling off. Let's put the wheel and tire aside. I'm going to use a large flat-bladed screwdriver. Wedge it in here and then push against the caliper to compress the piston in slightly. Just pull it slowly, this way when I loosen the caliper slide pin bolts the caliper will slide off without much resistance from the pads. Perfect. Got two 14 millimeter slide pin bolts here.
I'm going to use a 14 millimeter box wrench. Start with the bottom one, loosen it. If you need to, you can counterhold the pins here with a 17 millimeter wrench. Usually they come free but if you need to, you can do that. I'll hold on to the caliper while I remove the bottom one so it doesn't fall. Slide it up and off. We can just put this right here. Pull the old pads out of the caliper bracket, and just push them out. Same for both of them.
It needs a long ratchet and a 21 millimeter socket to remove the two caliper bracket bolts. Could also use a breaker bar and then a small ratchet once they're loose and we get them both broken free before I remove one. Once they're loose, I'll just take them out with my fingers. I'll hold on to the bracket so it doesn't fall. I'll take the bracket out.
I need to remove the T30 Torx screw that's holding the rotor to the hub, using a T30 Torx bit on an extension and a ratchet. These shouldn't be in there very tight, come right out. I'm going to spray some rust penetrant between the rotor and the hub and then some down the wheel studs. Parking brake assembly is inside of here and the rotor may be stuck on it. Sometimes these rotors will come right off. Put a lug nut on so the rotor doesn't fall off, and I'll tap it with a dead blow.
I'm going to use this flat bladed screwdriver. I'm going to pop this rubber plug out, and I need to look for the parking brake release mechanism. There's a star adjustment wheel in here that needs to be turned and it will collapse the brake shoes in for the parking brake. I'll pull them away from the rotor. A rust ridge can build up inside here making it difficult for the rotor to come off so we need to relax those parking brake shoes and bring them in.
All right, so we're going to go in and we're going to push this star wheel down. Feel it start to get looser. Then adjust it all the way out until it doesn't seem to want to adjust out anymore. Feels like it there. Seems pretty loose. I know it's not hanging up on the parking brake shoes, so it might be stuck around the hub. I'm going to hit the rotor some more with a mallet. Give it a couple good hits with your dead blow, the lug nut keeps the rotor from falling all the way off and you can remove the lug nut. Take the rotor off. This is what you're doing. You're turning this adjuster wheel down and it's pulling these brake shoes in releasing them from the rotor and then when you adjust it out it's threading this out and pushing them further against it. You'll have to reset the tension on this after we put the rotor on.
Here's our original pads and rotors from our vehicle and our brand new ones from 1AAuto.com. Rotor has the same lug pattern, same screw opening to mount it to the wheel hub, and same opening to access the parking brake adjustment. The pads are identical in design. These ones weren't in bad shape but I want to show you how to change them anyways. Comes with new shims on there. These will fit great and work great for you.
I'll put the rotor on backwards. Take spray parts cleaner. I'm going to clean off the oil that the rotor is shipped in so it doesn't flash rust. Just wipe it down with a rag. I'm also going to spray the inside where the parking brake shoes ride. Flip it around. Line up the opening in the rotor for the screw with the opening in the hub. I'm going to reinstall the screw. Not a lot of torque on that, just so it's tight. That's perfect.
Clean the outside face of the rotor now using brake parts cleaner. Same thing, it has oil on it. It's shipped, so it doesn't flash rust, and we just want to get rid of that. I'm going to adjust the parking brake. So the inside of this rotor is a little thicker. Kind of hear it dragging a bit. I'm going to open it up, kind of do this just by feel. I might have a little bit of drag but not too much. This is just so that when you actually use the parking brake inside the car it grabs pretty early in the engagement. You don't have to go all the way to the full extension of the parking brake handle or if it's a foot pedal all the way to the floor. It feels good there. Don't forget to put the little rubber plug back in. It keeps debris out of there.
We can reuse the caliper hardware. It's stainless steel. It just needs to be cleaned with some brake parts cleaner, a wire brush, and a rag. Just scrub it and do the same for both sides. You could also check the caliper slide pins. They should move nice and freely. These are in good shape. I'm going to leave them alone. You also need to clean inside these threaded part of the caliper bracket.
Factory uses a thread locker, so you just want to clean it out use some brake parts cleaner. We could reuse our caliper mounting bolts. You just need to clean off the old thread locker. We're going to use some brake parts cleaner, spray it down, and the wire brush. Clean up both of them. Just make sure you get it all off of there. If you have access to it, you can use a 14 by two thread die, and we'll thread this in here. It'll clean the threads out.
But the other method, you can just use a wire brush. This should thread in pretty easily. You may need to put a socket on it but it will clean all of the junk out of the threads. That's clean all the way, old thread locker out of there. You can see it's all in the die now. Apply some medium thread locker to the bolts. Do this for both of them, install the caliper bracket. I'm going to torque these to 129 foot-pounds. It clicks, there's no need to go any more. Lightly spray the brake pads with some brake parts cleaner.
We don't want any dirt, oil, or grease in the brake pad material. You don't have to soak them, just give them a light spray. Little bit of caliper grease on the ears. This larger curve on the pad is going to match the curve in the rotor. Just slide them in place, push them into the clips. Just like that. Do the same for the outside pad. We've got our caliper here. When you compress this piston back into the caliper so that will fit over our new brake pads because they are thicker than the old ones because they wore out. I'm going to put this on here, the old brake pad. Take a large C Clamp. Shouldn't take much effort, we'll just push the piston back in there.
This one's not even that far out. That should be good there. Make sure that this line's not twisted up when you try to do it. Slide it right over the pads. Make sure it gets over the pins. Install the upper bolt, install the lower one. I'm going to use a 17 millimeter open ended wrench to counterhold the slide pin bolt and I will torque this bolt to 20 foot-pounds.
Reinstall the wheel and tire. Thread the lug nuts on by hand. Going to lower the vehicle to the ground and torque the lug nuts. Torque the lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds in a cross pattern. Before you start and move the vehicle gently press on the brake pedal. This will bring the caliper, the cylinders out that we've compressed to meet the pads. You'll feel it start to build up pressure. You don't need to smash it to the floor. Just gently pump it till it builds up pressure. Just like that.
Thanks for watching. Visit us at 1AAuto.com for quality auto parts, fast and free shipping, and the best customer service in the industry.
Tools used
I'm gonna take a 22-millimeter socket and remove these lug nuts on the wheel. Now I'm gonna remove the wheel. I'm gonna remove these two caliper bolts. Use a 13-millimeter socket. Loosen them up first. All right. Now I'm just gonna take a straight blade screwdriver and just pry the caliper over a little bit just to compress the pistons a little bit. And that's good. Now I can slide the caliper off. And then take a brake caliper hanger and hang the caliper from the coil spring. Just make sure there's no tension on the hose. Now I'll take the brake pads off. Now we're gonna take these caliper bracket bolts off. Use a 21-millimeter socket. Break those free. And take those bolts out and slide that bracket right off. I'm gonna take this screw out. Use a t30 socket. Now I'll take a hammer and just hit right on these parts of the rotor. Try not to hit the studs. There we go. And slide it off.
Now I wanna clean up this hub a little bit. I'm gonna use a die grinder and just clean up some of this rust. I'm not gonna go too crazy. Just lightly sand it. Or you could use a wire brush. I'm just gonna take a light coat of anti-seize and just go around the hub. Now I'm gonna take this rotor, put it on backwards first. Take some brake parts cleaner and wipe it off and then spin it around. You wanna line this hole up with that threaded hole. And do the same on this side. Now I'm gonna put this screw in and just snug it down. Now we're gonna clean up the brake caliper bracket. Take these slides off or anti-rattle clips. Just use a straight-blade screwdriver. Slide that off. You can do the same on the other side. And we wanna clean up some of this rust. You can use a wire brush or you can use a die grinder. Just be careful. Don't take off too much material. It's cleaned up. Just take some brake caliper grease. Just do a nice thin coat. And put this pad slide back on and walk it down and just another thin coat of brake caliper grease, right where the pads are gonna slide. Then you can do the same on the other side.
Now I'm gonna pull the caliper pins out just like that. You take a little bit of brake clean, brake parts cleaner, and just clean these off. And if it's extremely dirty, you can clean out the inside as well with brake parts cleaner. Take some caliper grease, slide it back in, and then just make sure you set this boot back around the pin. Then you can do the same for the other side. Now you can put this caliper bracket over the rotor and put these bolts in. You can use some thread-locking compound on these bolts.
Then we can torque these bolts to 129 foot-pounds. Start with the top one and then the bottom. And then we'll take the brake pads and the one with the squealer or the brake warning indicator, it's gonna go on the inside with the tab facing up and the other one's gonna go on the outside. And I'll just take the caliper off the hanger. And I'm gonna use a brake caliper tool to compress the piston. It's going the wrong way. And just slowly compress the piston back into the caliper.
As you do this, this is gonna push brake fluid through the caliper, through the hoses, through the lines, back up to the master cylinder. All right. Those pistons are compressed. Now I'm gonna take the caliper and make sure the hose isn't twisted and just slide it over the pads. And put the bolts back in and torque these bolts to 47 foot-pounds, starting with the top one.
All right. Now I'm gonna put the tire back on and put the lug nuts on. Now we're gonna tighten the lug nuts down to 140 foot-pounds in a cross pattern to tighten the wheel down evenly. I'll just go around again, double-check. And now you wanna pump the brake pedal. Just go nice and slow. There's gonna be an air gap between the brake caliper piston and the brake pads. And once it feels good, then you're all set. And double-check the fluid level and adjust accordingly.
Tools used
Hi, I'm Mike from 1AAuto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years! We're dedicated to delivering quality auto parts, expert customer service, and fast and free shipping, all backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. We've created thousands of videos to help you install our parts with confidence. That saves you time and money, so visit us at 1AAuto.com, your trusted source for quality auto parts.
In this video we're going to be working with our 2012 GMC Acadia all-wheel drive. We're going to show you how to remove and replace your rear brake pads and rotors, as well as how to adjust your e-brake up once you've installed new rotors onto the vehicle.
If you like this video, please click subscribe. We have a ton more information on this and many other vehicles. If you need these parts for your vehicle, you can follow the link down in the description over to 1AAuto.com.
Any time you work on your brakes, we suggest you wear a dust mask and glasses to keep all the dust and debris from getting into your eyes and lungs while you're working.
While we're doing this on the passenger side, this process will be the same on the driver side. We always recommend that you replace your brakes in pairs.
Here are the items you'll need for this repair: 13-22mm socket, wrenches, ratchet, socket extension, breaker bar, pry bar, torque wrench, T30 Torx bit, flat head screwdriver, hammer, wire brush, groovelock pliers, brake cleaner, grease, bungee chord
Loosen your lug nuts using a twenty-two millimeter deep socket and a breaker bar. Raise and support your vehicle. You can do this with a jack and jack stands at home, but we're going to put it up on a lift to make it easier to show. Once you have your vehicle in the air, you can finish removing your lug nuts. Remove the wheel and tire.
Hold the wheel studs with a small pry bar. Use a T30 Torx bit and a ratchet to remove your rotor screw. Once you've broken it loose, you can remove the pry bar and finish taking the screw out. Remove the two fourteen millimeter caliper bolts on the back side of the caliper with a fourteen millimeter socket and ratchet. You may have to hold the caliper pin with a seventeen millimeter wrench to keep it from turning while we loosen the fourteen millimeter bolt on the back with our socket and ratchet. Be sure to crack both of these loose before removing either one fully. Remove your caliper. Secure it up and out of the way with mechanics wire, a zip tie or a bungee cord.
Remove your old brake pads. Sometimes these can be in there a little tight, so you may need a small screwdriver to help get them out. Remove the two caliper bracket bolts with a twenty-one millimeter socket and breaker bar. Again, you'll want to loosen both of these before removing either one fully. Once you've broken the bolts lose, you can finish removing them with a twenty-one millimeter socket and ratchet. Once the bolts are out, remove your caliper carrier from the vehicle.
Sometimes you can simply pull the rotor off by hand, but ours is stuck, so we're going to hit the surface of the rotor with a hammer back and forth to release it from the hub. We never recommend that you reuse rotors when doing a brake job, because they build up grooves and rust on them. You can get them machined, but usually they are so thin after the machining process that they're much more prone to warping. If you do have to reuse your rotors, you can hit this surface to release it. Just be careful not to hit the studs.
Once you've freed it, remove the rotor. Before throwing out our old rotor, we'll have to make sure we save this little rubber cap for the access hole to adjust our e-brake in case our new rotor needs it. There are a couple of quick things you need to do to your caliper carrier before re-installing it on the vehicle. Check and make sure your slides move nice and smooth. Ours are good.
We'll have to hold back on our boot here so we can remove the slide. Take a paper towel or a clean rag and wipe all that old grease off. Then put a nice fresh coat of brake grease. Make sure we keep moisture and corrosion out and allow our brake caliper to move smooth.
Reinstall it until it pops back into the boot. Repeat this step with the opposite pin. We'll also have to remove our shims here. Now if these are all corroded or cracked and broken, you'll have to change them out with new ones, but ours look pretty good. We'll just go ahead and take a steel wire brush and remove all that corrosion from them. These don't have to be perfect as long as they're nice and smooth and clear of dirt and debris and any kind of burs or cracking. Whenever you're doing stuff like this with your brakes, you're going to want to wear a dust mask and glasses to keep all that debris that's getting kicked up out of your eyes and your lungs.
Once our slide is nice and clean, we'll do the same thing to remove any build up from where the slides ride in the caliper carrier. Once that's all clear, we'll reinstall our slide. Apply a thin coat of grease to the portion that our pads are going to ride on. Once that's all done, we'll repeat this step with the opposite shim.
This hub isn't too bad, but just because we have it off, we're going to take our steel wire brush and remove any corrosion and rust build up that's on here so we can apply a thin layer of grease to it and make it that much easier to remove our rotor the next time we have to service our brakes.
Install your rotor onto the hub backwards, and spray down the surface with brake cleaner to remove the cosmoline that they put onto the surface to keep it from rusting while it's in storage. Flip it over. Be sure to line up the beveled hole with the threads for our rotor screw. Then spray down the front surface as well.
Your rotor screw is in a critical part of the function of your rear brakes, but, as you can see, our rotors hang at kind of an angle here. That's going to make it more difficult to line up our caliper carrier, brake pads and caliper later on. If you have yours, go ahead and take that T30 Torx socket and ratchet. Tighten them in there. To adjust the e-brake in the rear, you want it to drag lightly against the inside surface of the rotor.
Locate your adjuster wheel through this access hole in the rotor. In this vehicle, it's at about eleven o'clock. Adjust up that e-brake until it won't turn anymore. Once you have it adjusted all the way out so you can't turn anymore, you want to back that adjuster back off and set it so it just lightly drags against the inside of the rotor. You've adjusted it down so that e-brake just drags lightly against the rotor.
Go ahead and reinstall your plug. Reinstall your caliper carrier and your two 21mm bolts. Tighten those down with your 21mm socket and ratchet. Torque the caliper carrier bolts to 129 foot-pounds. Install your new pads into the slides. Apply a coat of grease to the back of the pad.
Using a pair of groove drop pliers, c-clamps or proper brake caliper compressing tools, slowly collapse the piston back into the caliper until it's flush. Once the piston is pushed back into the caliper, remove whatever you used to secure it out of the way. Make sure that your flexible brake hose isn't twisted or kinked in anyway, and reinstall the caliper onto the carrier. Then you can start your two 14mm bolts by hand. Torque the bolts to 20 foot-pounds. Again, you may need to use your 17mm wrench to counter hold the guide pins from sliding.
Reinstall your wheel and tire onto the vehicle, and install your lug nuts as tight as you can by hand. Torque your wheels to 140 foot-pounds. On a six lug wheel, you want to tighten the lug nuts in a triangle, so we'll go this way across the wheel and then make another triangle to tighten it all down.
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Tools used
The first thing we need to do to get started on these brakes is to raise and support the vehicle and then remove all your lug nuts and then the wheel. We have a clear view of our caliper. We need to push back this piston right there. Use a nice pry bar and slowly push it back. There we are. The next thing we need to do is remove these two caliper slider mounting bolts. Remove and inspect your caliper, make sure you don't see any brake fluid. Set it aside. Now, let's go ahead and remove our pads from the brackets. Now, let's go ahead and remove our caliper bracket bolts here. Remove your bracket, set it aside. Looking at the outer portion of the rotor, we're going to remove this little plug right here. There it is. Now, let's use a little bit of penetrant and spray the areas on the rotor that connects to the hub. Let's remove this Torx-headed bolt. Start on one of your lug nuts, and then bonk on the rotor to break it free from the hub.
If you find that this doesn't want to come off, you just have to de-adjust the e-brake shoes. You want to spin the rotor so the inside of this hole lines up with your adjuster screw in there, and then turn the adjuster until it loosens up. Remove your rotor. Now, let's clean down this inner surface of the hub and the outer surface of the hub. Using a nice collection bucket, let's spray down this entire area with some parts cleaner. Here's your adjuster. Let's hit it with some penetrant as well. Now, let's put on a little bit of copper never-seize on the mating surfaces of the hub. Copper never-seize right inside that mounting hole as well. So, the next thing we need to do now is clean up our brand new rotor braking surfaces.
We'll get that outer braking surface. Turn it over. And now we're going to clean up these two surfaces. Don't forget where the e-brake shoes ride. Let's get this on the car. To put this back on the vehicle, we want to make sure we line up the hole right here on the hub with the hole on the rotor. Perfect. Start in that mounting bolt and we'll snug it up. The next thing we need to do is adjust our emergency brake shoes on the inside there. We want to do that until this can't turn anymore, and then we're going to back it off a little bit. Just find that adjuster and adjust this all the way in so they touch the rotor. Okay. So that's adjusted so it's touching now. I can't turn this at all. Let's back it off just a couple of clicks here.
Now, we can start to spin and you can hear it just barely starting to touch. You don't want any drag, but you do want to hear it just barely starting to touch, just like this. A little boot back in here. Now, let's make our way over to a bench so we can clean up our caliper bracket. One of the first things I like to do is remove my sliders. Give them a nice little twist, take the boot off of there, then hold it like this, and pull the boot completely off. Set that aside on its corresponding side there. This one as well. Perfect. Let's move along to removing our tins. Set those aside for recycling. Awesome. The next thing we like to do is clean up these areas where the tin was. You want to make sure it's nice and clean with no buildup. All four corners look great. Now, we need to clean up our caliper slider ports. A little bit of parts cleaner and a nice bore brush. There we are.
Use your brush, come along the edge where the boot's supposed to be. Make sure there's no debris along there. We got that edge clean. Let's go ahead and spray it down again. And now, we'll do the same to the other side. This looks great. Let's set it aside. Let's move along to cleaning up our sliders. That's going to be the same process for either slider. Go ahead and clean them down. Look at them. And then you want to inspect this area right here. You want to make sure that there's no crud inside there as well. Anything that gets in between there could potentially mean moisture gets inside and contaminates your slider. Okay. So, now this one looks pretty great. We'll set that aside. Now we're going to clean up the boots. You want to make sure you get off all this gunk, especially the stuff on the inside there. Pull that through. Now we're just going to give it a nice wipe.
So, now we've got our slider and our boot cleaned down. Do the same to the other side. Now let's continue on with the bracket here. We're going to take a little bit of this caliper grease and I'm going to come right along this lip right there. Do the same on this one. Just a little bit will do. Now, we'll take a little bit of grease, go right inside that caliper slider port, do the same on the other side. Moving along, we're going to grab this slider, put some lubricant on there as well. Something that's important to mention is getting up inside that lip right there. That's where the boot's gonna ride. Super important. Perfect. Go ahead and take your slider boot. Put it on just like this. Now, we're going to slide this right in. Give it a nice squeeze. And you want to make sure that the boot's sitting on the groove all the way around. That looks good. It's on the bracket. Pull it out, make sure it's on the slider as well. Work it in there nice, and do the same to the other side.
Now, let's move along to adding a little bit of grease right along these areas right here. Spread it out so it's a thin layer. Time for those new caliper tins. Go ahead and slide it in. Squeeze right in the center here. Make sure that the locking clips are up against the caliper bracket. Do the same on the other side. We can go ahead and mount our caliper bracket. Let's clean these bolt threads. With those bolts cleaned up with a little bit of new thread locker on there, let's put our bracket back in here. We'll start in the bolts, and then we'll torque them down to manufacturer specifications. Let's torque these to 129 foot-pounds. It's gonna be time to install our brand new pads. You want one with the indicator and you want that one on the inside with the indicator facing up. Let me slide that right in.
This is the hardest part getting the tin. There we are. Perfect. Let's move along to prepping our caliper itself. You want to put a tiny bit of grease around the piston and then, of course, both of these ears. Caliper on here, put it right over those pads. Take your two bolts with a tiny bit of red thread locker, start them both in, and then we'll torque these to 20 foot-pounds. Let's quickly inspect what we did. Make sure everything's nice and tight. Make sure your flex hose isn't twisted. Now, let's get the wheel on here. We'll start all the lug nuts, get it down on the ground, and torque it to 140 foot-pounds. Torqued. The next thing that you'd want to do is go ahead and pump up the brake pedal so it's nice and firm, and then come out here and check your brake fluid.
