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How to Replace Front Brakes 1996-2007 Ford Taurus

Created on: 2010-11-08

Whether your 96-07 Ford Taurus's front disk brakes are worn, squeaky, faded, or old, 1A Auto shows you how to replace them in this video.

  1. step 1 :Remove wheel.
    • Remove hub cap or center cap if you have it.
    • While your car is still on the ground, use your 19mm socket to loosen your lug nuts.
    • Jack up and secure your car with jack stands.
    • Remove the lug nuts with your 19mm socket and ratchet.
    • Remove the wheel and set aside.
  2. step 2 :Remove the brake calipers
    • Use a screwdriver to force the pistons back in.
    • Remove the two 12mm bolts to remove the calipers.
    • Use a wire tie to fasten the caliper out of the way.
    • Use your screwdriver to pry out your brake pads.
    • Remove the two 15mm bolts on the caliper bracket to remove it.
    • Remove the caliper bolt sleeves.
    • Check their condition and clean them with a wire brush if necessary.
    • Pull off the brake rotor.
    • Hit the rotor with a rubber mallet or hammer if necessary.
    • Take care not to damage the lug studs.
  3. step 3 :Install new brake rotor and pads
    • Clean new rotor with brake cleaner.
    • Insert your new pads into the brackets.
    • Put your caliper bracket back on, and tighten the bolts to 75 ft lbs.
    • Compress the caliper piston with a c-clamp to reset the pistons.
    • Mount the caliper on the bracket and torque the bolts in to 20 ft lbs.
  4. step 4 :Put wheel back on
    • Make sure to use a star pattern when putting your wheel lugs back on.
    • Tighten to 75-100 ft lbs.
    • Replace hubcap/center cap.
  5. step 5 :Test and set brakes
    • Before driving the car again, start it up and pump the brakes a few times to get the pistons in the brakes in place.
    • Test the brakes in your driveway before taking the car onto the road.
    • Set your rotors by evenly braking from 30mph to 10mph, 50mph-30mph and finally 70mph to 40mph.
    • This is best done on a straight back road without any traffic.

Tools needed

  • 12mm Socket

    Large C-Clamp

    Torque Wrench

    15mm Socket

    Jack Stands

    19mm Socket

    Large Hammer

    Anti-Seize Grease

    Wire Ties

    Lug Wrench

    Ratchet

    Wire Brush

    Floor Jack

    1/2 Inch Breaker Bar

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 and maintaining your vehicle. I'm going to use my 20+ year's 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're going to show you how to remove and replace the front brakes on this 2001 Ford Taurus, exactly the same for any '01 or '02 Ford Taurus, and really this procedure is the same for probably just about any Taurus from '96 through '07. Tools you'll need are pretty standard, a jack and jack stands, 19 mm socket and ratchet or the tire iron, a 12 mm socket, a wire tie, a 15 mm socket, a torque wrench, and a large c-clamp.

We'll start by removing the wheel. If you have the benefit of air tools, that's great. If you don't have the benefit of air tools what you'll want to do is first loosen your lug nuts while the wheel is still on the ground. Then raise the car and take the lug nuts the rest of the way off.

Now with the tire off you're going to want to turn your wheels so that you can reach the back of the calipers. Now remove these two 12 mm bolts, one here, and one here. Those hold the caliper on. Now your caliper will pull off. You may want to use a screwdriver or something to pry it. The caliper comes off along with your brake shoes. We're just going to replace your brake shoes. We can kind of put the caliper up there. You can see actually on these brake shoes there's a line in the middle of them. When you look at it like that, that line is a wear indicator so if you couldn't see that line from the top anymore you'd know you'd need new shoes. These actually still have quite a bit of life left on them. So here's our original pad. Here's the new pad from 1A Auto. Everything is going to be the same. They're going to install the same. You can actually see that the new pad from 1A is a little larger, and we can see that on our rotor there are some spots where the pads weren't hitting. That's what the new pads from 1A are going to do. They're going to hit more of the disc and just do a little bit better job braking; nothing incredible, but like I said, these are in good shape so I'm just going to reinstall the originals for now, but I just wanted to show you that the new ones from 1A are going to go on. They're going to mount just like the original and work exactly the same maybe even just a little bit better. They come with the anti-rattle, and squeak, backing, everything.

Now moving along I'm going to show you how to remove and then put back on new rotors. I've secured my caliper up top with a wire tie so it hangs and it won't damage, you don't want to damage this hose. These bolts are 15 mm. I didn't get a good shot of these while I was doing these so here's the bolts that I'm working on right now. Here's the top one to enlarge your 15 mm, and here's the lower one, and this is out of sequence. You can see that the caliper is still on. Once you have that bracket off then your disc just comes right off. The new one from 1A Auto is going to go on just like the original, and just want to show you that. I am actually going to put the old brakes back together because they're in fine shape on this car. We'll torque these to 75 foot pounds. I'm going to use a large c-clamp to push the piston back into the caliper, and you generally might want to pop the cap off your brake master cylinder under the hood, but generally I do that and you don't have to worry much about it.

So put our pads back in place. Cut our caliper down. Put it in place. 12 mm bolts. You might have to kind of work it around a little bit here. These you only want to tighten up to about 20 foot pounds barely enough to make the wrench work. Now we can reinstall our wheel. I'm just going to tighten up a little with the impact wrench. Back on the ground you want to tighten up the lug nuts anywhere from 75 to 100 foot-pounds and use the star pattern so one, two, cross, cross, cross.

As I'm tightening these up, tightening these up is very important. The first time you go to use your car, pump your brakes multiple times until you feel your pedal firm up because since you pushed those pistons back into the calipers it will take a little bit for the system to refill so pump the brakes a bunch of times and then when you road test just put it in gear first, make sure that the brakes hold the car, then after that just do like a five mile an hour stop, make sure the brakes are working before you go out on the road.

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 here for you on the internet and in person.

2001 - 2005  Mercury  Sable
1996 - 1997  Mercury  Cougar
1996 - 1999  Ford  Taurus
1996 - 1997  Ford  Thunderbird
2001 - 2007  Ford  Taurus
1995 - 2002  Lincoln  Continental
1996 - 1998  Lincoln  Mark VIII
2001 - 2002  Mercury  Sable
2003 - 2005  Mercury  Sable
1993 - 2002  Lincoln  Continental
1993 - 2005  Ford  Taurus
1993 - 2005  Mercury  Sable
2001 - 2005  Ford  Taurus
1995 - 1995  Ford  Contour
1993 - 1998  Lincoln  Mark VIII
1993 - 2007  Ford  Taurus
1993 - 1994  Lincoln  Continental
1995 - 1998  Ford  Windstar
1994 - 2000  Ford  Taurus
1994 - 2000  Mercury  Sable

Replacment Brake Rotor Pair

Ford Lincoln Mercury Front Driver & Passenger Side 2 Piece Brake Rotor Set TRQ BRA76303

Part Details:

  • 11.57 in. (294mm)
  • 5 Lug
  • 2 Piece
  • Vented
  • (1) Front Driver Side Brake Rotor
  • (1) Front Passenger Side Brake Rotor
  • 0.55 in
  • 2.80 in
  • 11.57 in
  • 4.25 in
  • 108 mm
  • 5
  • No
  • No
  • Smooth
  • No
  • 25 mm
  • Vented
  • 26 mm
  • 294 mm
  • Cast Iron
  • 46 mm
  • 0.98 in
  • Conventional
  • 1.02 in
  • 71 mm
  • 1.81 in
  • Standard Replacement
  • 14 mm
$104.95
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