How to Replace Rear Brakes 2002-05 Chevy Trailblazer
Created on: 2011-05-31
Learn how to replace rear disc brakes in this 1A Auto video. If your 02-05 Chevy Trailblazer has squeaky or grinding brakes, watch this video!
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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.
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step 2 :Remove the rear brake calipers
- Use a screwdriver to force the pistons back in.
- Remove the two 14mm 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 18mm 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.
- Screw in the two 10M bolts to remove the rotor.
- Take care not to damage the lug studs.
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step 3 :Install new rear 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 90-100 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 15-20 ft lbs.
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step 4 :Put the rear wheel back on
- Make sure to use a star pattern when putting your wheel lugs back on.
- Tighten to 100 ft lbs.
- Replace hubcap/center cap.
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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
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Large C-Clamp
Torque Wrench
14mm Socket
Jack Stands
18mm Socket
19mm Socket
M10 x 7cm bolts
Rubber Mallet
Large Hammer
Anti-Seize Grease
Wire Ties
Lug Wrench
Ratchet
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+ 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 change the rear brakes on this 2004 Trailblazer same as most '02 to '09 GM mid-size SUV; the Trailblazer, Envoy, Bravada, Ranier, Saab 97x as well as the Isuzu Ascender. Tools you'll need: various size millimeter sockets with a ratchet, you'll want a breaker bar or a pipe for some extra leverage, two M10 x 7cm bolts, jack and jack stands, flat blade screwdriver, and a large C-Clamp, as well as a wire brush.
Rear tire, lug nuts are 19mm. If you don't have air tools you want to start with the vehicle on the ground, loosen the lug nuts, raise it, support it with jack stands, and then remove the lug nuts. I'll fast forward here as I remove the rest of the lug nuts and remove the wheel.
To check the condition of your brakes what you want to do is look right into this access hole and I'm going to turn the rotor a little bit so you can see the rotor. Right next to the rotor you can see the pad and it has a small hole there and even on the other side is a small hole. That hole is actually your wear indicator and since you can still see the hole that means that the pads actually have some more wear left probably on this vehicle another five or ten thousand miles. And then you also want to check the condition of your rotors, and you just want to run the back of your finger up and down just make sure that there's no deep grooves or anything in the rotors and even though these rotors look a little bit rusty it's just because the car hasn't been used a lot.
One thing we're going to do is take a large screwdriver and just carefully pry out on our caliper. That just gives us a little room to get it off and then the caliper is held on by two 14mm bolts, one down low and then one right up high. We'll fast forward through loosening and removing those bolts. They should come out pretty easy because you only tighten them up to about 15 to 20 foot pounds. Now the caliper comes right off, and you can use your screwdriver to pry out the pads.
Now to remove your rotors you're going to have to remove this bracket and there's two bolts; one here and one here. These bolts are 18mm. Always good if you're doing your own work to have a little piece of pipe around if you don't have a breaker bar because you're going to want to put your ratchet on here. These bolts are usually tightened to anywhere from 90 to 100 foot pounds. Just put your pipe on the wrench and then just go slow and easy apply pressure and loosen up the bolt. Now our other bolt, the sway bar is kind of in the way so what I'm going to do is take the 18mm wrench and then I'm going to hook my 17mm or just another wrench on here put them together like that. This gives me some extra leverage again. And again, pull nice and easy and slow and you'll break it free.
We'll speed it up here again as I use the wrench and the ratchet to remove those two 18mm bolts the rest of the way. That bracket comes off. Now if you're lucky pull your brake rotor right off. I'm not quite that lucky. I have two I believe these are either M10 or M12 bolts. Thread them right in. 17 mm heads. That will just help you get it out some, and that comes right off. So you might notice I've got a nice new backing plate and a new wheel stud on here. You can check out our other videos to see how I did those. The new disc from 1AAuto fits right on nicely. Now you'll want to reinstall your bracket. The bolt goes through and into the back of the axle. So, I've got my bolts preliminarily tightened. I'm going to use a torque wrench to tighten them to 90 foot pounds.
Before you go to put the brake pads on you want to make sure of a couple of things. These should slide back and forth nice and easily, nice and free. If they don't you can actually just pull them right out, clean them up and grease them and make sure that they move freely. Then these slides just kind of pull off and you want to take a wire brush and clean them out. So I've cleaned up this one and you don't have to get them perfect just get them cleaned out a little bit. Press them back into place, and now the new pads from 1AAuto, push them down in. They push into place. Same thing with the rear one here, push it down in. Push it in place.
So now if you go to put the caliper on you're going to find it doesn't fit, and that's because this piston has worked its way out as the pads wear. Just take an old pad put it right down, a nice big C-Clamp here. I'm going to use this C-Clamp to slowly push the piston back in. Make sure you work this gasket in, and now your caliper quite easily works down onto the new shoes, bolts in. Just going to fast forward as I just put those bolts in and preliminarily tighten them. You may find when you're tightening them you want an adjustable wrench or this looks like probably about a 15mm and you can just hold on to this nut right here. Mine seem to be going together pretty easily, and now we're going to torque those bolts to 20 foot pounds.
Now we are going to fast forward as we put the tire back on then start each one of the lug nuts by hand. You do want to make sure that you don't cross thread them, and then using our air wrench just preliminarily tighten the lug nuts. And now with the vehicle on the ground, torque the lug nuts to 100 foot pounds each, and please stay tuned to the very important last step which is to pump your brakes up before you try and road test your vehicle. And last but not least, you want to pump your brakes a bunch of times until you feel your pedal firm back up before you road test your vehicle and you can then just try and make sure you do a stop at five and ten miles an hour before going 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.
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