How to Replace Front Brakes 1997-2005 Buick Century
Created on: 2010-07-06
Replace the old, worn, or squealing brake pads and rotors on your 97-05 Buick Century. Learn how with this tutorial video from 1A Auto
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step 1 :Remove the wheel
- Remove the center cap with a screwdriver
- Take the plastic lug covers off.
- With a 19 mm socket and ratchet or lug wrench, loosen the lug nuts.
- Raise and secure the vehicle.
- Remove the lug nuts.
- Remove the wheel and set aside.
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step 2 :Remove the brakes
- Use a 15 mm socket to remove the calipers.
- Pry up the brake pads with your flat blade screwdriver.
- Check the life of your rotors by checking for grooves and wear.
- Remove the rotors if needed.
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step 3 :Install the new brakes
- Clean your rotors with brake parts cleaner and put them on the hub.
- Apply anti-seize grease to the edges of the brake pads where they slide into the calipers.
- Compress your caliper pistons with a large C-Clamp
- Clean up your caliper bolts and apply a little anti-seize grease to them.
- Put your caliper brackets back on.
- Put the brake pads into the caliper brackets and then the caliper.
- Put the caliper bolts into your brackets, with the one with the bushing on the bottom.
- Torque the caliper bolts to 75 ft lbs.
Tools needed
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Large C-Clamp
Flat Blade Screwdriver
Torque Wrench
15mm Socket
Jack Stands
19mm Socket
Ratchet
Floor Jack
Brought to you by 1AAuto.com your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Hi, I'm Mike Green. I'm one of the owners of 1A Auto. I want to help you save time and money repairing or maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20 plus years' experience restoring and repairing cars and trucks like this to show you the correct way to install parts from 1AAuto.com. The right parts installed correctly, that's going to save you time and money. Thank you and enjoy the video.
In this video we'll be showing you how to replace the front back pads and rotors on this Buick Century same as LeSabre, Grand Prix, Bonneville, Montana, Chevy Venture, Olds Silhouette, Olds Intrigue. The tools you'll need are some metric sockets, a 15 mm and a 19 mm, a torque wrench, jack and jack stands, a way to lift and secure your car and a large C-clamp. After we have raised and secured the car and now we can remove this stutter cap with a screwdriver. This hubcap comes off. We're just loosening up the plastic caps. Then using either your lug wrench or 19 mm, remove the tire. You can make it easier on yourself, turn your wheels this way, allows easier access to these bolts. Now using a 15 mm wrench we're going to remove these two bolts here. These two bolts are your slider bolts. You want to make sure you clean them up, put a little bit of grease on them before you put them back in. Pry your caliper right up and off. It will get stuck on the brake shoes a little bit. All I did there was I put my screwdriver in there and pushed the piston back in to get it off some.
Here are my old brake pads. See they're pretty thin. Most often when you replace your brakes you want to replace the rotors too. To get the rotors off, you've got to take off your old pad and bracket here, which is two 15 mm bolts again. Take the bracket off. Just shake a little bit and pull. It comes off. A new rotor from 1A Auto goes right on there. Put our pad bracket right back on. Make sure you get them started really well. I'm just going to use my impact wrench to get them a little in there. I'm going to torque them to 75 foot pounds. Now I'm going to put my new pads back in. This one has a wear marker. This little tab starts hitting the rotor as your brakes wear down. Have that on the outside and the wear marker pointing behind where the wheel is going to rotate. Here's my outer one. Take my socket here. There's my inner. Now we need to take our caliper here and force our piston back in. You need a large C-clamp like this. I just have the C-clamp right in the cylinder here. Prop it up here so you can see it.
I just tighten it slowly and that piston goes back into the caliper. The caliper can go back down on. Pull these little boots in. Right here's my two caliper bolts cleaned up. Put a little bit of wheel bearing grease on them. This one has a bushing on the end, that's the lower one. Just make sure that goes. Leave that one there. My boot's not really lined up. Make sure you get your boots lined up where they should be. Push the bolts in. I'm just going to tighten these up gentle with the torque impact wrench. Now I'll torque them 75 foot pounds. Now mount the tire back up. Now what I'll do is I'll put the lug nuts on. I'll lower the car back down and torque them to 75 foot pounds and then put the hubcap on and everything. Take it for a test drive. One thing you want to make sure you do after you've done the front brakes, you want to pump the brakes a bunch of times before you test it and then when you road test it, you want to make sure that the first time you do it, just do it in your driveway and make sure it'll hold the car in drive first, then go five miles an hour, press the brakes, make sure it stops and then take it out on the road for a road test.
We hope this helps you out. Brought to you by www.1AAuto.com your source for quality replacement parts and the best service on the Internet. Please feel free to call us toll free 888-844-3393. We're the company that's with you on the Internet and in person.
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