2009 Chevrolet Malibu Front & Rear Ceramic Brake Pad & Rotor Kit TRQ BKA22918

Okay, friends. The first thing you need to talk about anytime you're working on your vehicle is safety. You want hand and eye protection. With that said, safely raise and support your vehicle so the wheels are off the ground. Once you've done that, we're going to remove all 5 of our 19-millimeter lug nuts. Remove your wheel. To do the brakes, what we're going to need to do is push back our caliper piston, which is located right inside here. A lot of times, what people like to do is to open up the bleeder screw so that way there you're not forcing any fluid back up through the lines. The only problem with that is if it's in the condition that this one is with a lot of corrosion, more than likely what's going to happen is the bleeder screw is going to break off and you're going to have to buy yourself a caliper. What I would prefer to do is, of course, go ahead and leave this in here, and that'll end up just pushing in the caliper piston slowly. The next thing we're going to do is remove our caliper slider bolts. Using a pry bar, we're going to get the caliper off of here.

You might just have to work it back and forth a little bit. Take a peek at your caliper piston right here and also the boot. You want to make sure that you don't see any tears in the boot, and you also want to make sure you don't see any fluid. If you see fluid, it's probably brake fluid, in which case, you have to replace your caliper. To push back this caliper piston, you're going to need something that's going to be able to fit into those two grooves. We're going to need to twist at the same time as we push in. This isn't the type of piston that you can just go ahead and press in. I have a little tool here that has multiple edges. I found the set that fits in there. So, I'm going to line it up with the slots. I'm going to press and twist at the same time. All right. Set this aside. Now, we're going to go ahead and get the pads out of here. These are really frozen in there.

Now that we have the pads out of there, looking from the backside, you can see your two caliper bracket mounting bolts, remove them both. Next, we're going to take one of our lug nuts, start it right onto one of these lug studs. Spray down the rotor area where it connects onto the hub with a little bit of penetrant. Take your hammer and give it a couple of loving bonks. Remove that lug nut. Remove your rotor. Next, we need to clean up the mating surface where our rotor is gonna ride. Make sure you get it in between the area where your studs and your hub are. You want to make sure there's no raised areas. You can try using a brush, or if you find that there's large chunks, go ahead and use a screwdriver or a pry bar and just go ahead and scrape it right out of there. Okay. So, this looks pretty decent, let's move along to the backside though. If you were to look back here, you're going to see that there's all sorts of raised things, there's loose flakes of rust, there's all sorts of debris. You want to make sure you clean this up as well. If you leave something back there that could break free, it might potentially get behind your rotor or even between your rotor and your pads, which, of course, will cause a major issue.

Once you feel as though you have it cleaned down as well as possible, let's hit it with a little bit of parts cleaner. Let that fully dry. Now, we're going to apply a little bit of copper never-seize to our hub. So, we made it over to the bench so we can clean up our caliper bracket. One of the first things we need to do is get everything off of it that doesn't need to be there. Let's get the tins off of here. Set that aside for recycling. Take your caliper sliders, give them a little twist to pull them right off of there. Once you've done that, go ahead and remove the boots. Always inspect your boot. Make sure it's not torn or worn or crispy or hard. This one looks good. So, we would just take a rag, clean out the inside, do the same to both. That looks great. Now, let's clean up our sliders. You'll notice when you clean these up, one of your sliders is going to have a little rubber boot and then the other one won't. You want to make sure that you put the slider that had the boot in the same corresponding hole that you removed it from. Another thing to think about with your sliders is to check the condition. If it looks like they're rotted and pitting, or even they're rusted to the point that they might get stuck inside here, obviously that's going to be an issue. Make sure you clean this up and especially make sure you clean up this area right here, which is where the boot's gonna ride. If there's anything there that's going to cause a discrepancy where moisture can get in, obviously, you're going to have an issue overall.

We have the sliders and the boots cleaned up. We need to clean out the inside ports on our caliper bracket. This is where the sliders are going to be, and they need to be nice and clean. Grab a nice collection bucket with some hand protection and eye protection. We're going to spray a little bit of cleaner inside there, and then we'll use a bore brush to clean it out completely. Now that we have the ports cleaned up, it's important to make sure that you check this area right here and there. That's also where the slider boots are gonna ride. Make sure those are in good condition. Once you know that those are good as well, we're going to move along to the area where the tins are supposed to be. We need to make sure that there's no raised areas here. You can try to scrape it out. You could use a little brush, see if you can get it out. Or, of course, you can use one of those little sanding discs wheels, those work the best. You want to just make sure you have it nice and clean and a smooth surface. Okay. So, these look great. I did all four corners, they look amazing. One last thing that I'd like to mention, some people don't pay attention to this, but if you look along the rest of the bracket, just kind of make sure you don't have any large flakes. Anything like that could, of course, cause braking issues overall. Okay.

So, now, it's time to add a little bit of lubricant to this. We're going to go along all the areas that we just cleaned up. You want to make sure that you use it. It's going to help with vibration dampening and noise reduction. Now it's going to be time to get our caliper tins on here. You're going to notice they're both the same, so you really don't have to worry about anything. Go ahead and slide it in there. And you want to make sure that it's completely clicked in. It needs to be locked in because if it's free in any way, it could potentially slide in some way and cause a brake issue. Now it's gonna be time to get our caliper boots on there. I always like to take a little bit of lube. I'll just go right along the hole like that. And you especially want to make sure you get it along the outside, along that little ridge. That's gonna help keep moisture out of there. We'll just go ahead and force this up on there. Give it a nice little twist to make sure the lube's completely situated. Do the same to the other one. Now that we have those on there, let's go ahead and take some lube and put it right on the pins. Coat that complete pin all the way around, and, of course, make sure you get up near that lip.

Once you have it completely lubricated, go ahead and slide it inside there and then just kind of work it around a whole bunch of times. You also want to make sure that the boot is sitting in the lip. Give it a little wiggle, do the same to the other side. Okay. Both of those are in, we've got our tins on there. It's nice and clean. Let's get back over to the vehicle. So, we made our way back over towards the vehicle but before we go ahead and get the rotor on here, we want to make sure that we clean it down first. Here's a little bit of parts cleaner. Go ahead and clean the outside braking surface, turn it over, and make sure you clean the inside braking surface. Let's get the rotor up on here. I always like to hold it on with one of my lug nuts. That's just going to keep it from moving around and keep anything from potentially getting in between the rotor and the mating surface of the hub. Let's get our bracket up on here. Start in both of your bracket bolts, snug them up, and then we'll torque them to manufacturer's specifications. I'll torque these to 96 foot-pounds.

It's going to be time to install your pads. What's important to pay attention to is your wear indicator. You want to match up the wear indicator pad to the one that's came off of the vehicle originally so it's in the same spot. The pad with the wear indicator needs to go on the inside portion of the rotor. There we are. Now, we're just gonna take a little bit of that caliper grease, and we're going to go right along the piston area where it's gonna connect onto the pad and then along each of these ears. This is only going on the mating surfaces, and it's to help with vibration dampening and noise reduction once again. Put the caliper up and over your pads, line it up with your sliders, of course. We'll put in both of our bolts, snug them up, and we'll torque those to manufacturer's specs as well. Torque these to 26 foot-pounds. Fill up on here. We'll start on the lug nuts, and then we'll torque them down to 100 foot-pounds. Let's torque these to 100 foot-pounds in a criss-cross manner. Torqued. Let's go ahead and check and top off our brake fluid and pump up the brake pedal.

Okay, friends. Before we get started, make sure you safely raise and support your vehicle so your wheel is off the ground. Once you've done that, we're gonna remove all five of our 19-millimeter lug nuts. Remove your wheel.

Just to say, we're going to be servicing a lot of things on the front end of this vehicle, so if you see anything that's taken apart, that isn't necessarily in the steps that you need to see. Well, just don't really pay too much attention to that and just follow the steps ahead. All right. Now that we've got the wheel off, let's go ahead and remove the caliper bolts from the caliper bracket sliders. Using a small pry bar, I'm just going to get right in between here and see if I can apply a little bit of pressure and push back this caliper a tiny bit. You can use a wire tie or even a bungee cord. Let's get our pads out of here. Remove your caliper bracket bolts, one here and one up here. Hold that bracket. Now, we're going to remove the rotor. If you notice yours didn't want to come off, you could, of course, give it a couple loving bonks to break it free from the bearing. Before we can go ahead and put on our brand new rotor, you obviously want to clean up the mating surface. You definitely don't want any of this raised area. So, we're just going to sand it down. We'll make it look like it's brand new and we'll continue. Let's go ahead and clean up the rotor braking surfaces. Let's go ahead and put a little bit of copper never-sieze on our hub. Time to install the rotor. And I always like to hold it on with a lug nut. That way there it can't wiggle around.

Now, it's gonna be time to prep our bracket. Let's get everything off of it that doesn't need to be on there. Grab these tins, recycle those. Turn the bracket like this, and remove your sliders. When you remove them, you always want to inspect them. Make sure they're not rotted or pitted in any way. I always like to try to clean them off real quick. This one looks great. I'll set it to the corresponding side. Remove the other one. If you look at this one, you're going to see it has a nice little rubber bushing. If you were to switch this with the other side, you're going to potentially have braking issues. So, always try to make sure you have them on the same side. Some caliper brackets you can try to remove the boot. This one's actually a little bit harder and it actually damages the boot overall. So, if your boots are in good condition after you've inspected them and they're not cracked or damaged in any way, I would just continue on by cleaning out the holes the way I'm going to show you now.

At this point, you're definitely gonna want to have a collection bucket, hand protection, and eye protection. I always have it on at all times, but I'm just gonna mention it. Spray a little bit of parts cleaner inside these holes. Just be careful because fluid will come out. Take a nice bore brush, go right inside there. This is going to clean out any of the debris or gunk that's inside there. Go ahead and dump that out. Nasty. Let's give it a nice rinse. Empty that out. At this point, we need to wait for it to dry. I'm going to keep moving while it dries though and I'm going to clean up these areas of the brackets. The reason why we want to clean up these areas of the brackets is because that's where the tins are gonna ride. On top of the tins is where the pads are. If you have any rot or rust buildup underneath there, it's going to cause an issue with the pads moving inside the bracket, which would be very bad. Use a nice brush, give it a little scrape. If you find that there's large chunks that won't come off, you could try to use a screwdriver or a chisel of some sort. You want to make sure they're as smooth as possible. I have a little sanding disc tool right here that I like to use, so that's what I'm going to do.

The next thing we want to do is use some of our synthetic Moly Grease that came with our kit. I have a little brush here that I like to use. I'm going to go ahead and put it right on there on all those surfaces that I just cleaned up. The reason for adding this lubricant is for vibration dampening, noise reduction, and, of course, it'll keep moisture away from the metal. Something that I like to mention about the caliper sliders is when you're cleaning them, you want to pay special attention to this ridge right here. You want to make sure there's no debris in there or any rough edges. The reason for that is because it needs to connect right here with the boot and it needs to make a good connection and make sure that no moisture can make its way inside there. Once you're sure that you have it nice and clean, go ahead and use some more of that caliper Moly Grease. Go along the whole shaft of the slider and then, of course, make your way up and into that groove. That's gonna be super important. Go ahead and slide it into the corresponding hole. Make sure you did not mix up your sliders and then give it a nice spin just to make sure that the grease is situated. Let's do the same to the other one here. Once you have them both in, just give them a nice spin, and make sure they slide the way they should.

It's time to install our brand new tins. Go ahead and line it up. Squeeze it on there. Make sure it's completely secure. You definitely don't want this coming off. Do the same to both. Let's go ahead and get the bracket on here. I always like to use a little bit of threadlocker on my bolts. Start them both in. We'll snug them up and then we'll torque them to manufacturer specifications. Torque these to 96 foot-pounds. Now, it's going to be time to get our pads on here. But before we do that, we want to make sure that we put on our brake pad wear indicator. To do that, you need to take your pad that you're going to be placing on the inside and you want to pay attention to which corner we want to put it on. I want it to be on the lower half right here, so you can see where it's supposed to fit. Just go ahead and take that indicator and you might need to bonk it on there with something such as a hammer. Just be careful not to damage the meat of the pad. That looks pretty decent. It's completely situated. You want to make sure it's secure so it can't fall off. Go ahead and carefully put this in here. Should flow in there nice and easy. If it feels like you have to force it in or use a hammer, you didn't clean up your brackets enough. Put on the outer pad as well. Perfect.

Now, we need to prep the caliper itself. We're going to put a little bit of that caliper grease right along the metal part of the piston here and then along both of these ears. That's going to help with vibration, dampening and noise reduction overall. Now, we're going to slide this right over the sliders and, of course, over the pads Line up those sliders. We'll put in our slider bolts. Now, we're just going to bottom these out and then we'll torque them to 26 foot-pounds.

So, now, we just want to check the brake fluid level. Make sure it's at the maximum. If it isn't, use the recommended fluid, which is DOT 3 brake fluid. Make sure you close it completely because DOT 3 is hygroscopic and it'll absorb moisture. Make sure you clean down your entire braking surface just in case you have any fingerprints on it. All right. Let's just double-check everything that we fixed here. Looks great. We'll get the wheel up on. We'll start all the lug nuts, snug them up, and then we're going to torque them to 100 foot-pounds. One hundred foot-pounds. Torqued.