How to Replace Rear Brake Backing Plate 2000-06 Chevy Tahoe

I'm gonna start by taking the wheel off. I'm gonna use a 22-millimeter socket, take off all the lug nuts and take the wheel off. Now, we can take these caliper bolts out. I'm gonna use a 12-millimeter socket, loosen those up. And if the caliper slide is spinning, you can use a 17-millimeter wrench to hold it while you take the bolt out. Then you can grab the caliper. You might wanna rock it back and forth a little bit, that'll compress the piston a little. Make it easier to slide off. Then you can use a brake caliper hanger and just hang it from the upper control arm or you can hang it from the coil spring just like that. Just make sure there's not any tension on the brake hose itself. Now, take the brake pads off. Just slide them out of the way.

Now, we're gonna take the bracket off. you need to take these two bolts out. Use an 18-millimeter socket, loosen these up and then grab the bracket and just slide it off. Now, we're gonna take the rotor off. Just grab it and slide it. If it's stuck on there, you can take a hammer and just hit in these locations. It's stuck on the parking brake a little bit. Just try to wiggle. You can just take a pry bar, try to pry in here a little bit to get this off. I'm just gonna take two screwdrivers, just try to wiggle this back and forth. There we go. Slides right off. Now, I took all the breaks off for this side, I did the same on the other side. Now, to access the cover, I'm gonna pull this bar out of the way. I'm gonna use a 13/16 wrench or a 21-millimeter wrench. On the backside, there's a nut on the other side of this bolt, and take that bolt out. Use a 21-millimeter socket. I'm just gonna use a bungee cord and just pull this out of the way.

Now, it's always a good idea before you take the cover off to take the fill plug out. Otherwise, if you can't get the fill plug out, then you won't be able to add fluid to it after you're done. So, just use a 3/8 extension and a ratchet. There we go. Now, some of these cover bolts are pretty rusted, so I'm just gonna take a wire brush, just try to clean up some of the rust. All right. Now, I'm gonna take the cover off. I'm gonna use a 13-millimeter socket, take all these bolts off. Now, I'm gonna leave the top one in a little bit. Just leave it loose and then I'll pry the cover off. This one has the brake bracket right here, brake hose bracket or brake lines. Move it out of the way. Just be careful. If this looks really rusty, be more careful with it. I'll just loosen this one up. I'll just leave it like that. Make sure you have a drain bucket underneath before you start taking those bolts out. And then just get a screwdriver or a pry bar, just get underneath the cover and just slowly pull it back. Let the fluid drain.

And once that's loose, you can take the bolt off and just slide the cover up. There you go. You need to put the transmission in neutral and rotate the driveshaft so that this bolt ends up right here because we're gonna take that pin off. Now, we're gonna take this bolt out, which actually has a pin that goes through there, and I'm gonna use an 8-millimeter socket. You can try to use a wrench. Sometimes it's not so easy. And just take that off, loosen that up. I'm gonna slide this out. You're gonna have to go around the carrier and then try to push on the pin and slide this out. Now, I'm gonna carefully rotate the driveshaft again. Just make sure the gears aren't turning because you don't want them to fall out. That looks okay. Now, I need to hit the axle. Use a rubber mallet or a dead blow. Just tap it in. What you're looking for is there's a clip in there, and you need to be able to access that clip. Right now I can't get to it, so we're gonna tap this in more.

All right. So, now the C-clip is out far enough that I should be able to grab it with a magnet. Just use a magnet and grab it. You might have to rotate it a little bit. Slide it out like that. Now, I can use a pry bar and just pry the axle out. Be careful. Just pry right where the parking brake mechanism is right there. Once you pry out that far, then it should be easier to pull it out. There is a reluctor wheel in there that it presses on to and it just drops down once you pull that out. Slide the axle out. So, when you're replacing the dust shields, it's always a good idea to replace the seal, the axle seal, especially when you take it out, put it back in, otherwise, you may cause a leak. Now, I'm gonna take this parking brake shoe off. You're gonna take these adapters off and take these two little bolts out. Use an 8-millimeter socket. Take these hold-downs off. Take those off. We can grab the parking brake shoe and just slide it out, then slide it off.

Now, I need to take this bracket off right here. There's a little pin in here, so just make sure you take that off. This is what activates the parking brake, and the adjuster side, take that off just so you don't lose them. I'm gonna use an 18-millimeter socket, take these bolts out. All right. Now, you wanna take this whole assembly off. If it doesn't come off, just take a hammer, give it a tap from the backside and slide it down. Now, we're gonna take this part of the cable off. There's a lever right here, you just have to pull it out a little bit just like that. Then we can pull the spring down. And then there should be two teeth on the end of this, it shouldn't come off that easy. If you take some pliers, there should be two teeth right here that you got to squeeze. You just use some pliers. All right. Now, just take this shield off the bracket. Just use a straight blade screwdriver. And there's two tabs, so you wanna pry right here and here. And you should be able to slide this out just like that. Then there's that rubber grommet right there. So, you get a new one. Just try to put it on the same way the old one came off. And if this is excessively rusty, you can use a wire brush to take some of the rust off. This one is not too bad. Just line this up just like that. Make sure the grommet looks good. You can fold these tabs over a little bit. It's hard to fold them over with this on the ground. You can use a screwdriver just like that. There we go.

Now, I'll just pull back on the spring a little bit, slide the cable through. It should lock in place. And then take this mechanism, the lever, slide it through the rubber grommet and it's got to sit in there Like that. So, that's almost flat up against the shield. Now, I'm just gonna use a wire brush just to clean some of this up. Great. Looks good. Now, you can take the shield and bracket. And there is an arrow pointing to the front of the car. And the other bracket on the opposite side has the same arrow, but it's upside down on the other side. I'm gonna take the bolts, get the bolts started. Now, I'm gonna torque these bolts to 100 foot-pounds. Then if these tabs if you didn't bang them down far enough, just take a chisel or a punch and just tap them down a little more so they don't rub. Looks good. Then you can take this adjuster for the parking brake, slide that in. I'm just gonna use a little bit of brake grease on this side and put a little brake grease on the pin as well. Slide that one in.

All right. So, that looks pretty good. If this doesn't seem like it's all the way down, you can grab the arm on the backside and try to wiggle that to try to get that to work right. And if you have new parking brake shoes, now is a good time to put them on. If not, just reuse your old ones. And just slide this on the adjuster. It is slotted, and you can rotate it up and then put the brackets on and the bolts and the other bracket. Then snug those bolts up and slide the axle in. And then you're gonna have to tip it up a little bit just to get it. And you don't wanna twist it too much because then you're gonna mess up the spider gears. And I'm gonna have to give it a couple more taps so that I can get the C-clip in. Looks good. And just take the clip, slide it in position. Once it's all the way in, then just slide the axle up. Then you can do the same procedure on the other side. And after you've done that, then let's rotate the axle...rotate the driveshaft, I mean, and get the pin lined up. And you may have to move the bearings a little bit. I mean the spider gears. Just make sure the hole is lined up with where the bolts goes. There we go. You can give it a little tap with something soft and slide the pin back in, the pin bolt and tighten that up.

Now, I'm gonna torque this bolt to 27 foot-pounds. This vehicle has 8.6 rear end. If you have a 9.5 rear end, you're gonna torque that to 37 foot-pounds. At this point, you can put the vehicle back in park. At this point, I can use a scraper or even a razor blade. Just be careful if you're using a razor blade, and just scrape off any excess gasket material. Now, I'm gonna use a little brake parts cleaner and just wipe this down. Just try not to spray directly into the gear. Now, I can take the gasket and just line that in position. Then take the cover. Try to go over the gear. There you go. Just twist it a little bit. You don't have to take the sway bar links out, but you could if you're struggling with that and just line this all up and get the bolts started. And now I can move this brake hose bracket down and brake lines and get that bolt through. I'm just gonna snug these down before I torque them down. Now, I'm gonna torque this to 30 foot-pounds. And make sure you torque it in a cross pattern. So, we'll torque this one and then just go crisscross. All right. That's all in. If you're not gonna use this fill plug to fill up the rear differential, you can use a 10-millimeter hex socket and tighten that up. Just make sure it's snug.

Now, just hook this up and torque this to 77 foot-pounds. With the fill plug out, I'm going to add the limited slip additive first. It's always a good idea to add it and do that first before you add the gear oil. Then add the proper gear oil. You can check your owner's manual. You can use a hose to get the fluid into the rear diff. All right. Now, as you're filling this up, if you notice that it starts coming out the fill plug, then that's up to the ideal level. Certain vehicles, it doesn't have to go all the way to the fill plug, you wanna check your owner's manual and put the appropriate amount of fluid in. Now, put the fill plug in and snug this up not too tight. Once it starts getting a little snugger, just a little bit more. Looks good. Take a little break parts cleaner and clean it off.

Now, take the caliper bracket and line it back up. Brake caliper bolts, get those started. Now, I'm gonna torque these bolts to 122 foot-pounds. Now, I'm gonna put the brake pads on. Now, the warning indicators are gonna go to the top. So, on the inboard pad goes at the top and same with the outboard pad. Just slide them in position. That's good. Now, we're gonna take the brake caliper off the hook and just slide it over the brake pads. Put the caliper bolts in. Take a 17-millimeter wrench and torque this bolt to 30 foot-pounds. Do the same on the top. All right. Put the wheel on. I'm gonna put the lug nuts on. Now, I'm gonna torque these lug nuts to 140 foot-pounds in a cross pattern so that it tightens the wheel down evenly. And just go around and double-check.