How to Replace Rear Brakes 2013-14 Ford Flex

What's up guys? I'm Andy from 1A Auto. In this video I'm going to show you how to replace the heavy duty rear brakes on this 2013 Ford Flex. This procedure is going to be similar to the non heavy duty brakes. If you need parts for your vehicle, click the link in the description, head over to 1aauto.com.

We're going to remove the wheel. I'm going to take a 19 millimeter socket and an air gun. Remove the lug nuts. Take those off. Grab the wheel and pull it off. I want to remove these two caliper bolts. I'm going to use a 13 millimeter wrench. Loosen these up. If the pin starts spinning, you can use a pair of pliers to hold the pin from spinning. Actually, I'll leave that in there, because that might move. Take this top one off as well. Take those two bolts out. You can grab the caliper, slide it out. It's a good idea to use a hanger. We sell these hangers at 1aauto.com. Put the hanger around the spring and then around the caliper. You more or less just don't want this brake hose to be the main support of the caliper. Let me get this in there somehow, like that.

Now I'm going to use a 15 millimeter socket and a ratchet. Take these two caliper bracket bolts out. If they're on really tight, you can use a breaker bar if you need more leverage. Now I'll take those bolts out. Take the bracket, and the pads are kind of sticking a little bit, just try to wiggle a bracket a little and slide it off the rotor. There you go. Now need to take the rotor off. There is a screw right there. We're going to use a T40 socket and a 3/8 air gun. If you don't have an air gun, you can use an impact driver. Sometimes they're kind of difficult to use. Just put some pressure on there and lightly tap it off.

Now the rotor's rusted on there pretty good, so what I'm going to have to do is take a hammer and hammer in these areas right here. I am just going to put a lug nut just so if the rotor comes flying, it does not fall and hit me in the foot or anything. When you use a hammer, we actually sell a set these at 1aauto.com. Just give it a tap. Make sure it's a good size hammer, you don't want a little one. It's not going to work so well. Just move it a little bit. There we go. Got them. Pull the nut off and can slide the rotor off.

So even though it doesn't look like there's a lot of rust or anything on this hub, it's a good idea to take a wire brush, just go around and clean it, make sure it's all set. Or you can take a die grinder with some sanding discs, and just lightly sand it. Now you don't want to do this too much. You don't want to change the shape of the hub, so just lightly go around.

Now we're going to take the pads out of the rear caliper bracket. These are frozen in there pretty good, so just take a hammer and tap the pads out. Just like that. Same with this one. Take those out. Now, if you're going to reuse these clips, you're going to take a wire brush, clean these off. We're not going to reuse them, so we'll just take these off. Going to use a straight blade screwdriver or a pocket screwdriver, get underneath here, pop those off. Sometimes these are a little tricky to get off. There we go. Wear your safety glasses and take a wire brush, clean that off, or even a die grinder. If you're using a die grinder, be careful when you're sanding, you don't want to sand too much. You don't want to change the surface area where the pad actually contacts the bracket.

After that's all cleaned up, just take a little bit of brake caliper grease, get it on here. This is going to prevent some of the corrosion from the caliper bracket so it won't rust as quickly, then we'll take these brake pad anti-rattle clips or slide clips and install these. Now, they only go on one way, so if it doesn't go on the correct way, you've got the wrong clip. Just force this one down. That's pretty good. Take a little bit of brake caliper grease, put that on the clip where the pad is going to contact the clip, and I'll do the same for the other side.

Now we want to take the caliper slide pins out, just slide it out, take some brake parts cleaner, clean it off, not too much. Then take a rag, wipe it off. You can spray a little bit in here. You can try to wipe that off too. Take the rag, get in there, wipe that off. Now we'll take a little bit of brake caliper grease, grease this up real good. Reinstall it. Then you want to make sure the boot seats all the way around the slide pin, just like that. Then we'll do the same for the other side.

So now we have to install the brake pads on the caliper bracket. Keep in mind the side that has the mounting bolt holes, that's the side that the piston pushes in, and then the other side is the side that's on the outside of the vehicle. These pads are different. You can see these two little retainers right there, those hold this clip to the bracket itself. Now you can't put that on the inside or that's going to hit the piston caliper. You have to put this one on the outside and this one is going to go on the inside, and depending on the side that you're working on, you're going to have a squeal clip right here that's going to let you know your brakes are bad when you hear your brakes start squealing really bad.

For this vehicle, this is the position of the squeal clip on the passenger side. If you don't know, it's a good idea to check the brake pads that you take off the vehicle and see. Hopefully the person that put them on before you didn't mess them up. So there's that. And then this one's going to go on the outside. Make sure you don't get any grease on the actual pad material, and now we're ready to install it on the vehicle.

Before we put the rotor on, I am going to take a little of this copper anti-seize and just put a thin coat. I don't like to use a lot of it, it gets everywhere, but the copper anti-seize works pretty well with high temp so you can put some of this on, that way it'll be easier next time you go to take the rotor off.

Now we're going to put the rotor on backwards and I'm going to take some brake parts cleaner and just spray the rotor down. There is a protective film on the rotor so you want to wipe that off. Now put the rotor on correctly. Do the same on this side, brake parts cleaner, now wipe it with a rag. Now I'll take this screw, I am going to put a little bit of this anti-seize on the screw so it's easier to remove next time. Just a little bit. Get that started. Now I'll just take the T40 socket and ratchet. Just going to use my electric ratchet and just snug it up. You don't need it too tight, just snug. That's good.

We'll take the caliper bracket with the pads in it, slide that in position. Install these bolts. It is recommended that you replace these bolts, but we're just going to reuse ours. I'm going to take my 15 millimeter socket and electric ratchet, tighten these down. You can use a regular ratchet. Now I'm going to torque them using a torque wrench and a 15 millimeter socket. Now whether you have the heavy duty brakes or the regular brakes, the torque is the same for this bracket. It's 76 foot-pounds. Do the same with the other one.

Now I'm going to grab the caliper, take that hanger away. Now we have to compress this piston. You do need a special tool to compress this piston because you want it to spin in while it's going in. Sometimes you can rent these tools if you don't have one. What this is going to do is these little ears are going to line up with those little holes or slots, and as we tighten this up, it's going to spin. Now one thing you want to keep in mind, the boot, you're going to be careful because you don't want to rip this boot. So you come over here, just take a little pick, very carefully go around the boot. Sometimes it gets stuck. There's a little bit of rust ridge on there. So do that. Take the correct size wrenches for the tools. Some of the tools actually have pins and tighten this down. As you can see, it's going to spin, and as it spins, it's going to compress it.

All right. Once that's compressed enough, you can take the tool off. You want to make sure that these slots line up the way they came off. These have to be up and down because you're going to have that pin on the inside of the brake pad, so that's got to line up with that. Take the caliper, just slide it over the bracket and the pads. Now we'll take these caliper bolts, get these started. It's also recommended you replace these, but we're going to reuse ours. Same with the top. Then I'm going to take a 13 millimeter socket and a torque wrench and we're going to torque this caliper bolt to 24 foot-pounds and if the pin starts spinning, just use a wrench to hold that from spinning. Now that's going to be whether you have the heavy duty brakes or the non heavy duty brakes. Same torque.

Take the tire, reinstall the tire, put the lug nuts on. I'm going to use a 19 millimeter socket and a torque wrench. I'm going to tighten these lug nuts down to 100 foot-pounds in a star pattern. The reason I do it in a star pattern is to tighten the wheel down evenly. Then go around again just to be sure. Everything's good.

Next, I want to pump up the brake pedal because there's going to be an air gap between the brake caliper piston and the brake pads themselves, so we want to eliminate that air gap so they stop right away. We're good. Pedal feels good. Now we're going to check the brake fluid reservoir. Wipe any dust away from the cap itself. Check the brake fluid level. If it's too high, you're going to have to adjust it down. If it's too low, add a little bit. Make sure you add the correct brake fluid. This vehicle takes DOT 4 brake fluid, so you don't want to add anything else but DOT 4. We're good, we're above the minimal line, close to the max.

Thanks for watching. If you want the parts to do it yourself, check out 1aauto.com, the place for DIY auto repair.