How to Replace Rear Brake Pads Rotors 2005-10 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD Diesel

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

Before we put our truck in the air, we're going to loosen and remove this hubcap. It actually has little plastic caps that look like lug bolts, but they just screw on to the actual lug nuts. They're 22 millimeter. I'm just going to use a 22 millimeter deep socket and a 1/2 inch ratchet. They shouldn't be on here very tight. Just knock them loose. Just like that. Once you get them loose, you can just use the socket to unscrew them. It should just come right off.

Those stay in the hubcap. They've got little threads in them. The actual lug nuts have little threads in them, and that's how they're held on. Now, we can loosen the real lug nuts. Use a large breaker bar and a 22 millimeter socket. Break these lug nuts free, while the vehicle is on the ground. Go around, get them all broken free. All right, with those all broken free, now we're going to raise and support the vehicle. This is a really heavy truck, so make sure you have some heavy duty jack and a jack stands, and it's supported securely.

We're using our two-post lift. Because our truck is extra long, we're going to use this floor stand jack and just support the back of it right under the trailer hitch. We don't actually have to lift up on the truck, just bring this up till it touches the bottom. Just right there is perfect. Lug nuts are loose. I'm just going to use the 1/2 inch ratchet and a 22 millimeter socket. Actually, they're real loose, so I will just remove them by hand.

Wheel seized to the hub, so I'm going to put a lug nut back on, on the bottom. I'll put one on the top. Just lightly. You're not threading them all the way down. This is just so, when we knock it loose, the wheel doesn't fall off. Take a dead blow and just knock it around the tire. Try to break it free. Let's spray some rust penetrant here. This is an aluminum wheel, a steel hub that's corroded to it. Spray some in the lug openings.

You can use a heat gun or a small torch like this, and very carefully heat around the edge, and get this aluminum wheel to expand a little bit, and help knock it off hub. I'm not really applying direct heat right to it. I'm just keeping it away. You don't have to get it red hot. You just want to get it hot enough so the wheel expands. That worked perfectly. These are pretty warm. Put the wheel down and out of the way.

Before we try to remove the caliper, let's take a large flat bladed screwdriver. Wedge it in here. What I'm going to do is pry outwards and that will compress the pistons inside here and loosen it up, so when I go to take the brake pads out, they'll come out easier. Just gently pry it. It's not going to go very far, but it'll go enough that you'll be able to take the brake pads out. Caliper is held to the bracket with two Torx bolts, here, that are holding the slide pins in. The top one is very difficult to get to. We're not going to remove those. We're going to remove it at the bracket bolts and pull the whole caliper off, and then separate it up here on the spring.

We'll take an 18 millimeter socket and a good sized ratchet, or a breaker bar. It's hard to have clearance in here on the ratchet. This long ratchet fits nicely. I'm going to loosen this one up. We don't want to go too far with it, because it'll get caught between the spring, so just loosen up and then take this out. Do the same for the bottom one. Pick the caliper up a little bit to help you take this bottom one up. Put that aside.

As soon as you remove this top one, the caliper is going to want to fall. Make sure you hold it, and you can use your fingers to remove the top one. Leave this right up here on the spring. All right, so we get these apart. Flip it up. Can actually slide the pad down. Then you can put your fingers in here.

You should be able to slide this up on the caliper side if they're free moving. You might have to come here and use a small flat bladed screwdriver and just pop the boots up and off the slide pins. Just be careful with them. You don't want to rip them. Then, just push these apart. Try to do it evenly. Those come apart just like that. Take the brake pads out.

While we're working on this caliper, we're going to compress the pistons back into it so our new pads will fit. We'll take an old brake pad that came out of here, just put it across the two of them. Take our large C-clamp and get it lined up. Now, we've got it lined up, and we'll just gently turn this in to compress them. You'll know you've got a good caliper if they go in nice and easy. You shouldn't have too much resistance. Some resistance, but if they don't move at all, your caliper might be seized the pistons. Then you should replace your caliper. Now it's good. Take this off. Move that up here.

It's time to get this rotor off. There might be a retainer here that was just to hold it on. That's a little factory retainer. Just spin it off. You don't really need these. They just help hold the rotor on. The parking brake assembly, or e-brake assembly, is inside of here. It may be preventing this rotor from coming off easily. You can try to knock this with a dead blow hammer or a small mallet. If that doesn't work, you'll have to go in, and we'll show you how to release the tension on the parking brake.

That should help this slide right off. I'm going to try this mallet first and see if it comes off. Just kind of knock it free. We got lucky. It came off pretty easy. Our parking brake assembly is wet with oil. That's telling me there is an axle seal leaking, but we're going to ignore that for now and continue with the brakes. We'll just clean it up.

If you needed to adjust these parking shoes to get the brake caliper off, the adjuster is here, but there's an access window on the backside that's covered with a rubber plug. You'll take a small flat bladed screwdriver and pop it out. Be a little tricky to get out. You're going to have to find just the right angle. It'll just pop right out. Then you can take a screwdriver and go in here. I see the spot. You would twist it, push it upwards like this, and that would adjust the shoes inward and give you more clearance to get the rotor on or off.

If you need to adjust them afterwards, you can spin it out to adjust the amount of drag that you have. When you're done, don't forget to put this cap back in. I'm just going to use some brake parts cleaner and clean up some of the oil in here. Again, I know it needs an axle seal, but we're not doing that today. It's not too, too, bad, so we're going to let it go.

These are old brake rotor and pads from our vehicle and our new ones from 1AAuto.com. See, it's the exact same style and design. The brake pads match the new ones. They've got shims on them, wear indicators, and same bolt pattern. Inside the drum is for the parking brake, or e-brake, as you might want to call it. These'll fit great and work great on our vehicle.

I'm just going to clean the hub. I'm going to put the rotor on backwards. This way I can clean it with brake parts cleaner. Wipe off any excess. Flip it over. Slides on nice. Use some more brake parts cleaner to clean off the oil that comes on these when they're shipped so they don't flash rust.

We're going to clean and reuse our caliper hardware. They're stainless steel. Just spray them with some brake parts cleaner. Use a wire brush. Knock off the grit and dirt, and do the same for both sides. This is ready to go back on the car. I was just looking at the dust boots, here, on the slide pins.

This one's nice and pushed out, which is good. This one is kind of weird looking, and I'm looking at it, and it has flipped itself inside out. I'm just going to gently take a small flat bladed screwdriver and pull it out, and that's the way it should look. I clean and lubricate our slide pins. Wipe them down with a rag. Take some caliper grease and apply it to them. Do the same to this one.

Take a caliper bracket and get it started. Slide these in. Take an outer pad. They're both identical—inner and outer. Not going to clean the surface yet, but I am going to put a little bit of caliper grease here on the ears. The reason why I'm not going to clean the surface yet is because the way I'm going to put these in, I'm probably going to touch the surface with my fingers, and I need to clean it again anyways.

Going to start by going this way. Slide them up into the guides, and then you can bring these down some more. Take your inside pad and do the same thing. A little bit of caliper grease on the ears. Slide it in this way. I have to actually open this up a bit. Our brake pads line up on the hardware, and this should just slide right down. We need to push those up. Those will come right down.

Our boots popped right back over the pins, which is perfect. Now, I can slide these up. Pull them apart like that. Just got to touch them. I'm going to take some brake parts cleaner and just clean them off. Got our caliper bracket bolts. Just going to take it and slide it over. Try not to hit the edges. We need to bring the pads out. Got them lined up. Going to catch the top one. Play with this a bit and get it lined up.

Now, I can get the bottom one. I'm going to torque the caliper mounting bracket bolts to 120 foot-pounds. See our caliper. It moves nice and free. Before we're done, after we put the wheel on and torque it, and put the vehicle on the ground, we'll press in our brake pedal to bring the pistons back out.

Reinstall our wheel. Start the lug nuts by hand. Just going to use my socket and ratchet. Just snug these down before I lower the vehicle and torque them. Torque the lug nuts to 120 foot-pounds in a cross pattern.

Reinstall hubcap. Take just the socket and get these threaded on. After you've finished the brakes, be sure to gently pump the pedal to bring the piston out to meet the rotor. Just pump till the pedal gets hard. That feels good.

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