2011 Subaru Forester Rear Semi-Metallic Brake Pad & Rotor Kit TRQ BKA10718

Hi, I’m Mike from 1A Auto. We’ve been selling auto parts for over 30 years!

Using a 19 millimeter deep socket and a breaker bar, I'll loosen the lug nuts with the vehicle on the ground. I'll raise and support the vehicle. With the lug nuts loose, I'm going to use the socket and finish removing them. This wheel is nice and loose. I'll take it off and put it aside.

I'm going to take a flat bladed screwdriver and just wedge it in here, and then pull the caliper to the outside. This will compress the piston inside. It'll make it easier to pull it off just like that. You can see the piston. That actually moves really nicely on the slides so I know it's not seized and the piston went in there nice and smooth. This caliper's in good shape.

Now to remove the caliper's slide pin bolts, there's a bottom on and a top one, 14 millimeter. We're going to start with the top on. Spin it out. We'll do the same for the bottom one. We'll take our caliper off, and I'm just going to rest it on top of the suspension arm here. Just going to pop our pads out of the caliper bracket using a flat bladed screwdriver in here. Do the same for the other one.

I'm going to take a mallet here and just kind of wedge it in between them because I'm not reusing these. So those pads are really stuck in there. They should have a little bit more grease on the ends so they slide better. Now to remove the caliper bracket bolts, there's a bottom and a top on. I'm going to start with the top one. These are 14 millimeter. If they're really stiff, you can use a dead blow mallet. Just hit on it. Break them free. I'm going to switch to a ratcheting wrench to make this a little quicker. Do the top one the same way. I'm going to hold the bracket so it doesn't fall. Take the bracket out.

So you should have the parking brake off before you try this to get the rotor off because the parking brake assembly is inside of here with brake shoes and a rust ridge will sometimes build up on the inside, preventing you from just easily pulling this rotor off. I'm going to pop this rubber cap out with a flat bladed screwdriver. That's okay. If it pops inside, that's fine. You'll just get it when we pull the rotor off.

We need to find the adjuster, which is right there at the bottom. There's a star wheel adjuster just below that spring. We're going to turn it and release the tension so that this brake rotor will come off easier. So use a flat bladed screwdriver to push it in towards the car and you'll actually feel this rotor will get looser because it's pulling the brake shoes in away from the inside of the hub, inside of the hat here. I'm going to spray some rust penetrant around the hub here and inside these threaded holes. Just try to break the seal.

The rotor might be rusted to the hub a bit. Let's see if it's going to break free. I'm going to tap it with a dead blow mallet around it. It's a little loose. We're going to take some metric bolts. These are 8 by 1.0 thread pitch. I'm going to thread them in, and I'm going to use them to push the rotor off. I'm just going to use the appropriately sized socket for the bolts. I'll just turn it off.

You can start to see it's pushing it off. You just kind of go evenly back and forth. Sometimes, it's a lot easier than hitting it a bunch of times with a hammer. That's nice and loose now. You can actually pull that right off. Here we go and inside, you can see the parking brake assembly. It just drops a little rubber plug that I pushed inside there. Save that. We're going to reuse it.

Now just pushing in, it goes inside of the car in this adjuster wheel. It's pulling the adjuster in, which in turn, pulls the parking brake shoes in and it releases them from that outer rotor hat. On the inside, you can see where their brake shoes for the parking brake were riding, and then the rust ridge that builds over time and that rust ridge can make it hard to pull this rotor off unless you compress or retract those parking brake shoes in.

I took out the caliper slides by just pulling them in and out. Those are working nicely. They don't need to be cleaned or lubricated. Then reuse the hardware. It's stainless. You're just going to clean it with brake parts cleaner and a wire brush. You do that to the other side.

Now would be a good time to inspect your parking brake hardware. This all looks in good shape. It's not a very old car. Just going to take some brake parts cleaner and spray this down. All right, just going to spray the inside of the brake rotors with brake parts cleaner. Make sure it's nice and clean. I'll install it. I'm going to adjust the parking brake, turn it so I can see that star wheel again. Before, I was going under the spring to loosen it.

Now I'm going to go above the spring just a few turns to bring it out. It's hard to tell how far it's dragging because you're getting the resistance from the differential. So I just want to bring it out a little bit and then afterwards, we're going to go inside the car, pull it out a little bit more and we're going to pull up on the parking brake handle and it will self-adjust the brake shoes out to meet the new rotor. Don't forget. Reinstall that little rubber plug that keeps weather out of there. It just pushes back in.

We're going to put some copper anti-seize on the caliper mounting bolts. I'll install the caliper bracket—get the top one started. Might have to move the bracket around. Get that threaded in. Get the bottom on threaded in. Use the ratcheting wrench and just tighten these down. Get them snug and then we'll do a quarter turn more. Here's out original pad for our vehicle and a brand new one from 1AAuto.com.

So you can see here, this is worn to 6 millimeter and brand new pad has 8 millimeter. It's not really that worn. But we're going to show you how to replace it anyways. Using the same design, the inside pad will have the wear indicator. This is an outside pad. This will work great and fit great in your vehicle.

Just going to give the brake pads a quick clean with some brake parts cleaner. Don't have to soak them. Get rid of any dirty or grease. Take a little caliper grease and we'll put it on the ears. This one will go on the inside. Line it up. Push it in place and the same for the outside pad.

We need to push our piston back into the caliper so it can fit over the new brake pads. Put an old brake pad over it. Put a C-clamp in there and just kind of gently turn it and press the piston into the caliper. That should do it.

Reinstall the caliper and we'll put the slide pin bolts in. Same with the other one. We'll tighten these up just like that. If while you're tightening this, the slide pin bolt starts to spin, you can counterhold it with an adjustable wrench. Just get it situated in there and then tighten it. This one didn't spin on me so I didn't have to do that. We're going to do the same for the bottom one. Just tighten it. Once it gets tight, just stop. You don't want to break them. The copper's moving nicely. I haven't sprayed the face of this brake rotor yet. If you get this caliper on and you forget to do it, no big deal. You can spray it right now as it is. You can just turn it. It's all set.

Put the wheel and tire back on. Hold it up. Get the lug nuts started by hand. You're going to use the socket. Thread these all down. I'm going to lower the vehicle. I'll torque them. I'm going to torque the lug nuts to 89 foot-pounds in a cross pattern.

Now we need to gently pump the brakes to move the pistons out to meet the pads. I'm not going to press it all the way to the floor. Press it about a quarter of the way. Build it up. It'll start to get harder. That's perfect. Now the brake job is done.

At the rear, we want to adjust those parking brake shoes. You're going to hold the button and just pull it up. It'll start to get tighter. We'll see if it latches. A couple more times. It'll start to grab sooner and just do it until you feel it get tighter, lower. That's good there.

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