How to Replace Parking Brakes 2005-10 Chrysler 300

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In this video, we're going to be working with our 2006 Chrysler 300. We're going to show you how to remove and replace your vehicle's e-brakes. These are inside of the rear rotors on this vehicle, and we're going to show you how to do it with the hub removed. However, on a lot of cars, you can sneak them around without removing the hub; we're just going to give you a better view of what's going on.

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Here are the items you'll need for this repair: 15-32mm sockets, ratchet, socket extension, E-12 inverted Torx socket, large wrench, breaker bar, pipe, jack, jack stands, flat blade screwdriver, prybar, bungee cord, mechanics wire, chisel, hammer, punch, brake grease, locking pliers, torque wrench

Using a 21 millimeter socket and a breaker bar, break all of your lug nuts loose about one turn before raising your vehicle. Now these chrome cap style lug nuts are prone to having this chrome covering get water behind them and loosen up. If you can't get it on well like I can't here, just give the socket a couple of taps to make sure you get good contact when removing it. Now if these are really loose or you find a lot of them in poor condition like that, it's a good idea to change out all of your lug nuts. Raise and support your vehicle, we're using a lift to make it easier to show you what's going on. But this job can easily be done at home on a jack and jack stands. Finish removing your lug nuts, you should be able to do this by hand now. Remove the wheel and tire from the vehicle.

Now this is an aluminum wheel on a steel hub, so you may have to work it back and forth a little bit to get it to free up. To remove our axle nut, we'll install a lug nut fully onto threads here. We'll then install a large wrench. We're using a 22mm, but it doesn't have to be a 22mm specifically. We'll use a lug nut to lock that one down too. We'll now lower our wrench onto the ground to keep it from rotating while we loosen our axle nut. Remove our axle nut with a 32 millimeter socket breaker bar and a cheater pipe.

Remove the lug nuts and your wrench from the studs. We're using a flat punch; place that into the divot in the center of the axle and tap the splines free of the hub. Remove the two 15mm bolts securing the caliper to the bracket. We'll do this using a 15mm socket and ratchet. Now in this case, our guide pin is rotating as well, so we'll grab a pair of pliers to hold that steady while we remove the bolt.

Using a flat blade screwdriver or a small pry bar, remove the caliper and using a mechanics wire, zip ties or bungee cord just tie up, secure it out of the way. Using that same screwdriver, remove the brake pads. That one is really stuck on there. We’ll remove the bracket and then tap that out with a hammer. Using an 18 millimeter socket and ratchet, remove the two bolts securing the caliper bracket to the spindle. Be sure to crack both of these loose before removing either one fully. Remove the caliper bracket from the vehicle.

Now around the ring of our rotor, we have some very heavy build up. This is from dissimilar metals like the aluminum wheel being attached to these steel rotors and hubs for so long. To try to make it a little easier to remove, we're going to use a small chisel and the hammer. Just try to break as much of that stuff out of the crease as we can, so we aren't fighting it when we remove our rotor. Now this rotor's no good; I could just hit the face of the rotor but to show you another way if you were to be reusing this. You can tap in between the studs on the face of the rotor to free it up from the hub. You may have to hold the rotor and tap this side to help release it. Ours is stuck on the e-brake, we're going to have to remove it the hard way.

Remove the four E-12 inverted Torx bolts securing the wheel bearing onto the back of the spindle. They're two on each side, they're opposite the other ones we just showed you there. The socket you'll need for this is called an inverted Torx. This is almost like what a bolt you would remove with a Torx bit looks like. They're kind of obscure, but they are able to be found. This is an E-12, that's how they are designate the sizes on these. We'll remove those bolts with that socket, a ratchet, an extension. Now these can be very prone to stripping, you want to make sure that you really get on there good. You can get a little better look at the bolt there and see exactly what we're talking about. You can see how thin these contact points are, which is why it's important you make sure that that socket is fully seated on there before trying to remove it. Otherwise, you'll just round the top edges off and crack them and then they're a real pain to get out.

Now it may be helpful when you're trying to remove the bolt from the last couple of threads. If you put your hand on the end of the CV axle right where those threads come through where we removed our nut and push back on the axle, these do have some plunge to them. You can push it in, give yourself a little more room. You may have a better variety of extensions but we're in kind of a weird place here, you really just got to work it little by little in between that control arm and the shock. It's probably more work than it's worth to remove either of these components and give you more swing room where this is working well enough. Sometimes you just got to be patient with hardware like this. Be sure to support the hub when removing the last bolt. Ours is pretty much falling right out.

Now push against the end of the CV axle and carefully remove the hub because it is behind the backing plate, as well as the emergency brake hardware. Remove that from the vehicle and just be careful, because this is hanging from the cable over on this side but it does still have some movement to it. You don't want to risk breaking anything.

Now normally the service manual expects you to remove the wheel hub assembly before removing your e-brakes, and I like to try to show you guys how to do it around the wheel hub so you can avoid all that extra hassle and process when doing this at home. However, on this particular vehicle, these pins which help center and retain the position of our e-brake shoes are actually on the backside of the backing plate, sandwiched between that and the hub, so the pins can't be removed with the wheel bearing still attached to the vehicle.

Now it's not recommended, but I suppose you could remove these clips and keep the factory pins there, though these clips and pins will weaken over time, and you could end up having to go in here and do this all over again. We're going to show you proper way to do it, but these same steps could be applied if you were to try to work around the hub. We'll start by using a pair of needle nose locking jaw pliers; you want to try to grab on the end of the springs. Make sure you have a good set of pliers and that they're on there nice and tight. Unhook the springs from the holes. With those springs removed, we can spread and remove our e-brake adjuster or star wheel. Be sure you remember which way this goes; if you put it in the other way, you won't be able to access it through the adjuster door in the back.

These are usually so worn out, we just push them down and slide them off by hand. Remove that shoe, slide the pin out of the back. Now we'll remove the spreader just because the way this sits in there, it's going to fall off anyway. We'll remove this bottom clip. Remove that as well. Now with all this taken off, your backing plate is free floating, so just make sure you keep on where that is and don't let it fall. This spreader has a small hook inside of it which will face up and hook onto the opening in the end of our e-brake cable. We'll then need a pin, a clip, one of our brake shoes; these are identical so it doesn't matter whether you put one on the top or the bottom as long as you have them facing the right way. Pull that away. Send our pin through the hole in the backing plate, and through this slotted piece of brake shoe. Install the clip, compress it, and slide it behind the head of the pin, and do the same thing for the top side.

Now don't worry about making sure these engage to the spreader just yet, just because there's no real tension on them. This is just to hold them in place so we can worry about that a little bit later. Just give you a better idea of how that pin goes through the backing plate. Now we'll line up those shoes into the tabs on the spreader.

Reinstall the spring. This is the one with the two little curled ends on it; you'll want to make sure that this arm is offset so it doesn't interfere with our spreader. Put your locking jaw pliers on there, and install the hook into the other opening. Make sure that everything will still align with our hub after each step, just to make sure we don't put ourselves in a spot. Now this kit didn't come with a new adjuster wheel; however, ours still moves freely so we're going to loosen it up, and put some brake grease on the threads, collapse it down to its smallest size, and then reinstall it. As long as there's no evidence of heavy rust corrosion and the threads move freely, there's really no reason to replace these.

If it comes with a new one, go ahead and throw it in; otherwise, you can always save the old ones. Wipe off that excess grease. The bottom half of the adjuster just slides over; it doesn't thread in or anything, it just kind of rests in there. Remember to put the adjuster wheel the same way it came out; ours was up, so we'll just spread the brake shoes and lock that in. Lock onto the spring. The smaller one goes into this hole at the edge by the adjuster wheel. It can be a little tricky to hook in there at first. Might be easier to do without the grips on there first.

Install your wheel bearing, being careful to line up the splines on the CV axle, as well as not hitting or damaging any of the e-brake components. If your e-brake spring gets stuck behind the hub, you should just be able to pull it around with a pick or a flat blade screwdriver and finish tapping it in. Now I like to start the bolts into the spindle and get one or two of them started a couple of threads before tightening anything down, just to make sure that my hub is aligned properly.

Finish tightening down the hardware with your E-12 inverted Torx socket, a ratchet, and the extensions you need to get onto the head of the bolt. Apply a thin coat of brake grease to the surface of your hub, as well as the bore of the hub. This will prevent the wheel from freezing onto the hub, as well as the rotor. If you have an old axle nut lying around, place it over a wheel stud. Start one of your lug nuts just tighten that down, tight as you can by hand don't need to go crazy tight on there. What that's going to do is it's going to prevent your rotor from moving around too much while you install your brake caliper carrier, pads, and caliper.

Reinstall your caliper carrier as well as the two 18 millimeter bolts. We'll just start by hand for now. Then tighten down your hardware with an 18 millimeter socket and ratchet. Torque the caliper carrier bolts to 88 foot-pounds. Install your brake pads into the shins in the caliper carrier. Apply a thin coat of brake grease to the backing plates of the brake pads. This will prevent them from seizing to the caliper. Then reinstall your caliper with your two guide bolts. Tighten the caliper pin bolts down with a 15 millimeter socket and ratchet. Torque the caliper pin bolts to 23 foot-pounds. Remove the lug nut and axle nut from your hub if you used them. Reinstall your axle nut, tighten it down as far as you can with a 32 millimeter socket and ratchet. Use an extension or punch to pop out the center cap on the wheel and reinstall it onto the hub.

Install all of your lug nuts as tight as you can by hand. Finish tightening your axle nut and then torque it to 157 foot-pounds. Reinstall your center cap, tap it back into place. Torque your lug nuts to 110 foot-pounds in a cross pattern.

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