How to Replace Rear Calipers 2000-06 Chevy Suburban

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While trying to bleed the brakes on our '03 Chevy Suburban, we had the bleeder screw on one of our rear calipers shear off and the other one feels like it's going to do the same thing. Since our brakes could use an update anyway, we're going to go ahead and install a new set of calipers on them. If you find this information helpful, please click the subscribe button, we have a ton more information on this vehicle as well as many other makes and models.

We already have our wheel and tire removed to make it easier to show you what's going on. To remove yours all you need is a 22 millimeter socket. I used an impact gun; you can use a tire iron if you have to or a 22 millimeter socket and a breaker bar, just about anything to get that 22 to turn. You'll have to remove the plastic caps, and you can just slide that on and spin them off by hand. All six need to be loosened up because they are threaded onto the lug nut, and then just zip the lug nuts off with whatever you have. Crack them loose, raise and support the vehicle, then remove the lug nuts and wheel.

We've placed a catch pan underneath our caliper, and what we're going to do first is crack the banjo bolt, on the end of our brake line fitting, loose with an 11 millimeter socket and ratchet. All we want to do is crack that loose. We have some fluid coming out now so we're just going to put that back on, just a touch, so it doesn't leak, and we can remove it easily when the caliper's off.

We'll now remove the two 12 millimeter caliper slide bolts with the 12 millimeter socket and ratchet. Be sure to crack both of these loose before removing either one fully, because that can make the caliper move when you're trying to loosen it and tear a line, which will make this job a lot bigger. Sometimes these slides will spin. You can either hold them with your fingers, if they go easy enough like these ones do, or you may need to put a pair of pliers on there to hold them in place. Using a flat blade screwdriver or a small ply tool just pry the caliper off a little bit. We'll put that somewhere safe off to the side, you can usually get away with resting it on that control arm and you can go to zip-tie or a bungee cord around that if you'd like.

We'll then use the flat tool to pry out the pads. Make sure you pry on the ears here and not on the pad surface, otherwise you could damage it.

Using an 18 millimeter socket and breaker bar we'll loosen these two 18 millimeter caliper bracket bolts. Once we crack them loose we'll switch over to an 18 millimeter socket and ratchet. Just like the calipers themselves, you'll want to get both of these bolts cracked loose before you remove either one fully, as it could cause the bracket to flop over and damage the rotor or just make it more difficult to remove. Remove the caliper bracket from the vehicle.

Using a 12 millimeter socket and a pair of pliers to hold the pin, we'll remove the pin bolts from our new caliper and bracket so we can install the new bracket, and then our new caliper.

Install the new slides into your new caliper bracket. You can see they go in just like that. Make sure you push the centers in so they lock down, and then take a little bit of grease and grease the new slide. Now I like to grease the entire thing, this isn't necessary because your pad doesn't actually ride on this portion of the metal, but that little bit of grease helps keep dirt and debris off of it and keeps it from rusting out, so it's more likely that we'll need to do less work to clean these up next time we do a brake job, or even less likely that they'll rot out and need to be replaced. You should also grease the pins, however, ours came pre-greased right out of the packing, so there's no need for us to do that.

Install your new caliper bracket and line up the two 18 millimeter bolts. We'll just get these started by hand for now to make sure that everything's in place before we tighten it down. Then we'll snug them up with our 18 millimeter socket and ratchet before torqueing them to spec. Torque the caliper bracket bolts to a 148 foot-pounds.

If you're reusing your old brake pads make sure they go back on the same side they came off of. Pretty easy to tell which is which, this one clearly has two round marks from where our piston sat on it, while this one has kind of an M shape to it, which matches the mark on our outer pad. We'll go ahead and slide those into the shims, which we've already greased. The front slides right in like that, and the rear does the same thing, and then we'll apply a thin coat of grease to the back of each of the pads. The reason we do this is it helps prevent a little bit of noise and vibration, as well as preventing our shims from getting stuck to the calipers and either falling off and rattling or causing other braking problems.

Before installing the caliper onto the bracket be sure to set the spring clip into place. Simply lay the front edge in, and then this end with the little tab and ear on it, it just gets pushed down until everything seats into place. Install your new brake caliper, and everybody does this slightly differently. This is just the way I like to do it, as long as all the steps are here, the exact order isn't super particular. I just find this easier and faster for getting this part torqued on. Using a 16 millimeter wrench to hold the guide pin in place, torque the bolt with a 12 millimeter socket and a torque wrench to 31 foot-pounds. We'll do this on the top and the bottom.

Now we'll remove the 11 millimeter banjo bolt, which holds the flex hose onto our brake caliper. The key with these is to get them on and off quickly so you don't lose a ton of brake fluid. Our new part comes with a new banjo bolt and some new washers. To seal it you would put one on one side, go through the block on the flex hose and then put one on the other side before bolting it into the caliper bracket. I like to use the old ones because they do seal a little bit once they corrode and settle into this block on the end of the flex line, and getting new ones to seal can be time consuming and tricky. Normally I'll just toss this on, make sure that both of the washers are on there, torque it down to 30 foot-pounds and make sure everything seals up nice.

Remove the warning label and banjo bolt plug from the new caliper, and then quickly remove the 11 millimeter bolt with your socket and ratchet, switch it over and torque it down to 30 foot-pounds. Again we have our drain bucket underneath the vehicle here to make sure it catches any fluid. We'll make sure the washer's in there, and it is. Set my caliper in the drain bucket, lay the new part into place. Get that threaded and tightened down quick as we can here, but also this is just an aluminum caliper, so make sure you don't cross-thread anything.

Now that our caliper and bracket are installed on the truck, we can reinstall our wheel and tire to a 140 foot-pounds, and you want to do that in a triangle pattern, and then bleed our brakes and you're good to go.

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How to Replace Rear Calipers 2000-06 Chevy Suburban

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Caliper

step 3 :Installing the Brake Caliper

step 4 :Installing the Wheel

Tools needed

Use Your Head to Enhance Key Fob Range It Really Works

How to Replace Rear Calipers 2000-06 Chevy Suburban

step 1 :Removing the Wheel 0:43

step 2 :Removing the Brake Caliper 1:20

step 3 :Installing the Brake Caliper 3:37

step 4 :Installing the Wheel 8:46

Tools needed

Use Your Head to Enhance Key Fob Range It Really Works

step 1 :Removing the Wheel

step 2 :Removing the Brake Caliper

step 3 :Installing the Brake Caliper

step 4 :Installing the Wheel