How to Replace Rear Brake Backing Plates 2002-09 Chevy Trailblazer

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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're going to show you how to fix a common problem on these GM mid-size SUVs, the rear disc backing plates tend to rust just because of their design. This is the same for any of these mid-size GM SUVs: the Trailblazer, Envoy, Bravada, Rainier, Saab 97x, and Isuzu Ascender.

There's a wide range of tools needed. Various size metric and standard sockets and wrenches from 5/16 inch to 19 millimeter, ratchets and extensions, breaker bar or pipe for leverage for some of those harder to move bolts. A catch pan, jack and jack stands, flat blade screw driver, 2 M10 by 7 centimeter bolts, 3/8 driver ratchet with extension hammer and torque wrench. This is an involved repair. I wouldn't call extremely difficult. You do have to take a part and put together a few things. The hardest part of it, probably, is some of the bolts are going to be quite tight and you need to make sure that you have something that you can get some leverage to get those bolts apart.

For your tire, lug nuts are 19 millimeters. If you don't have air tools, you want to start with the vehicle on the ground, loosen the lug nuts, raise it, support with jack stands and then remove the lug nuts. Okay, we'll use some fast forward as we remove the rest of the lug nuts and the wheel. We want to use a screw driver. What I'm doing is point out on the caliper that just helps to get it off the brake pads. You remove 2 bolts and then remove the caliper. And on this vehicle those are 14 millimeter bolts. Pull off the caliper, put it up and out of your way and then you can just pry out the brake pads. You actually can skip this step, you can just pull the bracket off, then you want the pad bracket, two 18 millimeter bolts on this vehicle. I'm going to use a piece of pipe along with my ratchet and the pipe actually just gives you some extra leverage and then on the lower bolt on this vehicle, it has a clearance issue, so I'm going to put on my 18 millimeter wrench and then I'm going to hook another 17 millimeter wrench onto it and pull down. Okay, then finish off taking those bolts out. Now the bracket comes off and then hopefully your disc will just pull off, on this vehicle it doesn't but the vehicle has 2 threaded holes, you insert some M10 metric bolts and use your wrench to tighten those bolts up which forces the disc off of the hub.

You could see a pretty common issue on these vehicles. The backing plate here is actually just kind of rusted and falling apart. Remove your emergency brake shoes by pushing them down and off of a clip first and then push them right up and off. Now we're going to remove the axle for each side and you start by removing the ten 13 millimeter bolts on the back of the rear differential and as I start removing them, get to the last 2, the fluid starts leaking out, allow some time for the fluid to drain out and then remove them the rest of the way.

Now you want to turn your drive shaft with your vehicle in neutral until you have a good angle at that bolt right there. I'm using a 5/16 inch wrench and I'm going to remove this bolt. As you remove this bolt, you want to hold this pin up here, pull that bolt out and let that slowly slide down. That will allow you to actually push your axle in. It then allows you to pull out a C-clamp. This will fall down here. Magnet. That C-clamp comes out, which now allows you to pull out slowly your axle.

With this backing plate missing and all is a really good angle here. You want to force your emergency break cable back up through this bracket by prying on a couple of tabs. Okay and pull your cable out, you need to pull on this. There are basically two opposing forces going here. Unfortunately I don't film it very well because my shoulder gets in the way, but you pull with your right hand, pull on the cable and then with your left hand you pull that spring, you just need to uncover about 1/4 inch of the cable and it goes right up through a little slot in the bracket.

That allows your cable to come up and out of there. Okay, with your axle out, now you can use whatever tools you need to, to get these off. I do have Loctite on them, so I'll use a large breaker bar, or a piece of pipe for leverage. Make sure the caliper stays up there, pull that out.

Now, we need to take and pry these, there's 2 tabs, one here and one here. Pry those tabs up. Give this whole thing a couple taps with a hammer and then to get that out, just kind of pull it up and out like that. Clean all out pieces of the old backing plate off. I want to save this, it's a rubber grommet on here. I'm just kind of peeling all the metal off so I can save that. What I'm going to do is just use this little screw driver, just hit the rusty metal and it'll hopefully go off. I got my new backing plate, put this in, twist it down. After it's in I'm going to put this rubber grommet right there. Make sure that's all together. I'm just going to stop here due to some technical difficulties I didn't get to film. There is another small rubber, kind of triangular piece that goes in under the arm. Just make sure you put that back in where it belongs. It's actually pretty self explanatory the way it's shaped. This'll all go on like so. Okay, before I start my other bolt, I'm just going to put a little bit of Loctite on them. Pull this out. Now here, I'm just tightening the bolts preliminarily with my impact wrench. Now I'm going to torque these to 90 foot pounds. Okay, we're going to end part 1 here. If you'd like to see the rest of it and putting it all back together, just see the video with the same title but says part 2.

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.

How to Replace Rear Brake Backing Plates 2002-09 Chevy Trailblazer

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brakes

step 3 :Removing the Axle

step 4 :Removing the Backing Plate

step 5 :Installing the New Backing Plate

step 6 :Completing the Repair

Tools needed

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Instructional Video Library

How to Replace Rear Brake Backing Plates 2002-09 Chevy Trailblazer

step 1 :Removing the Wheel 1:38

step 2 :Removing the Brakes 2:07

step 3 :Removing the Axle 4:14

step 4 :Removing the Backing Plate 6:36

step 5 :Installing the New Backing Plate 8:52

step 6 :Completing the Repair 10:43

Tools needed

Shop Products

Chevrolet GMC Buick Olds Isuzu Rear Brake Rotor Backing Plate 2 Piece Set Dorman OE Solutions 924-208

How to Replace Rear Brake Pads and Rotor 2003-11 Ford Crown Victoria

Same Day Shipping

Guaranteed To Fit

USA Customer Support

Instructional Video Library

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brakes

step 3 :Removing the Axle

step 4 :Removing the Backing Plate

step 5 :Installing the New Backing Plate

step 6 :Completing the Repair