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What a warm 54 degree, sunny shinny day for break job, 1-1 1/2 hour job, 2-3 hours to complete everything scheduled for the day, then to car wash to clean and vac her out, and then a nice ride in the country side...or so that was the plan! Caline had plans and agenda of her own, so...
Warning these pic are not for the weak of heart
After dealing with the over torqued lug nuts from an impact wrench at the former owner's mechanic, which multiplied x4, each lug worse, finally got the front passanger tire off ...









Darren, the mechanic friend that was kind enough to let me use his garage and tools for a mere 12 pack, looks at me, and says 'Dude you got a mess on your hands.Everything is fused together with rust. You realize this is all original?' I reply, 'Tell me about it.' He nudged me out of the way, looks up "This is too much for you, get out of way and stay there till I tell you otherwise! BTW I'll try not to rape your wallet to bad!!"

After much strong arming, pounding, prying, lubing, we finally got the caliper bolts loose, the rotors, we ended up using a wheel puller, tighten, pound, pry, tighten, wait, repeat as many times as it took.

Caline didn't take kindly to being treated in such a mannor and was angry enough to bite back. "How dare you touch me in such a manor my dear sir! I'm a lady and you don't know me like that!!"
Blood dripping everywhere. Not a hold ur breath till the pain stopped and continue, it was bandage time!

The work continues,









Note this is the driver side pad remnants, the piece in the rear is what was left of the pad itself,


As the day dwindled, after learning the calipers are far worse than imagined, and replacing them in the spring was not an option, don't even wait to get both axles, get the front asap, then the rear asap, a mad dash all over town collecting new caliper bolts. A whole lot of

Darren's friends start stopping by to find out why this simple brake job has turned into an all day night mare, receiving a ton of complements and whole lot of car story swapping...






Cheers,
Running Wolf

Eh... My pads were broken in three pieces when I took mine off. There may have been a reason for that though...

SSEiMan01 wrote:Eh... My pads were broken in three pieces when I took mine off. There may have been a reason for that though...

I haven't had that pleasure yet!

On the way home I did get into her a bit, 90 in a 40...just a taste mind you know, she's in control of the money and refuses me trivial expenses like a tickets...

That is the reason I clean, grease and paint everything I touch...

Looks like the car is not driven to much with all the rust build up. I hate to say it, but you might be back to swap out those pads sooner than you think. I had the Duralast Gold pads on a while ago and they will start to squeal really bad after awhile for no reason. I finally got sick of it and upgraded the pads.

i have seen worse . not to say this was not bad . but could a been allot worse .

Like snapping a rust cailper stud . and when u try to take the cailper braket that bolt snapped too .

Happened to a VW passat when i used to work at a lube shop . car was there for 3 days being fixed for a simple front pad swap ....

really good looking job when you finished. Hope you don't have to fight that battle again. - BC

I wish my brakes looked that good....but what can I expect for a $700 impounded car lol

Looks like that car sat outside on the dirt its whole life

I had a Dodge Ram like that last year. The pads backing pad disintegrated in my hands. Thankfully no piston seals were damaged and no broken bolts (it's fun having to re-tap that!), but nonetheless, not the normally quick job I had expected.

Owner 1- 6 yrs, put 45k--8k yr avg, so it sat, speculating elderly owner(s) or the weekend go visit grandma car...
Owner 2- 3yrs, 125k--42k a year avg, traded w/ 131k 8/12, poor girl didn't have time to cool down....
I bought it mid November at 131,700K dealer had it attempting to chase an electrical issue till 12-10-12 132,500k, I got the paperwork 12-15-12

Till me, evidence strongly suggest garaged, now she's an outside girl...
my honest opinion, although the second owner kept it "clean", oil regular, tires n rotated, repaired those tow truck items, found out about the LIM gasket and upper Pentum leak, drove till money allowed trade in...dealer fixed only enough to get it sold...to me. lol

We had parts turn to dust in out hands, extremely lucky we didn't have bolts break or bust during removal, at least 2, I snapped in my hand and I'm that strong. One of the rotors had a nice portion around it totally rusted away, when it was dropped on the floor it broke into so many pieces we didn't count. No pics of these, by the time we finished the first one pics where the last thing on my mind..

Then there was the rusted, bent, lug stud....errrrr....I have at least 1 more on each rim that has to be replace...thinking on doing them all for my own piece of mind...

vogie01 wrote:Looks like the car is not driven to much with all the rust build up. I hate to say it, but you might be back to swap out those pads sooner than you think. I had the Duralast Gold pads on a while ago and they will start to squeal really bad after awhile for no reason. I finally got sick of it and upgraded the pads.

I looked at the Duralast Gold and the Duralast C-Max Gold side by side, I found with the tappers on the ends of the Gold pads it made greatly reduced the braking surface and the pads themselves where smaller than on the C-Max Gold, the Gold was a fraction thinner as well. Also, the rubber shim technology on the C-Max Gold impressed me and reviews where favorable. They came with a lifetime warranty which is also nice. (then there is the no brake dust!!)

In looking at reviews I noted alot of people had the squeal issue with the Gold, but didn't see any mention about the squeal with the C-Max Gold. Time will tell....

If I had more cash on hand I might have went with a higher quality brake and rotor, as it was the pads cost me 50.99 + tax per axle, due to a special, I got 20.00 off an axle with purchase of rotors and my bank was having a cash back bonus for Auto Zone, which came to 14.00, for a total of 55.00 savings. (note I had to go back and get each axle separate to get the full 40.00 savings) Basically, I got a set of pads for free!!

had 02 mailbu that front brakes pads melted to rotors. and no that tire would not move.

cmax pads are really hard on rotors but you will never hear them and are very low dust. I have been using them on all my vehicles for 5 years now. I did install a couple gold sets this year for some friends, I hope they don't start squealing lol!

Tough brake jobs are the worst... it's something that should be really easy, so when you get a tough one it's just so freakin annoying!

I replaced the pads on the GXP three times in 190k miles, with Duralast Gold ceramic pads. Oh, and I only replaced the rotors once.