One Beer Projects: Doing Your Own Brakes

By Chuck Cage

Grab a beer (OK, maybe a couple) and learn how to do your own brake job and save a ton of cash.  It’ll take longer than most of our projects, but look at it this way: you can build yourself a small bar for what you’ll save.  We’ll talk you through finding the parts and getting the job done.  (Podcast Download)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 at 12:34 pm and is filed under One Beer Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

13 Responses to “One Beer Projects: Doing Your Own Brakes”

1. cc Says:
   May 18th, 2007 at 1:39 am

   miata huh? cool.
   You guys left out bleeding the brakes? While you’ve got your car up in the air and all of the wheels off, you might as well bleed the brakes. I don’t know how well those bleed assist tools work, but you can call a friend over to help with the bleeding. And I guess that makes this into a six pack project. And then you might as well change the air filter, fuel filter, grease all of the fittings, rotate tires, flush radiator, yadda yadda. Make it a few cases of beer.
   I’ll admit that I take one of my cars to my mechanic because the rears are drums, and I don’t mess with drums.
   Also, I agree wholeheartedly with buying new rotors instead of getting them turned :
   1. new rotors don’t cost that much more. You discussed this, but it’s worth mentioning again.
   2. I’ve seen rotors turned incorrectly - the operator tried to take off too much at once and the turning machine ended up chattering on the rotor. He didn’t mention this when he gave the rotor back to my friend, of course. Nice. Worst case scenario, some sort of hilarious or catastrophic brake failure. Best case scenario, you’re out ten bucks for rotor turning and you STILL have to buy new rotors.
   3. Heat dissipitation is part of the functionality of the brake rotor. If you’re removing material from the rotor, then its thermal properties will be affected. Which reduces the effectiveness of the pads as well. The inevitable result : hilarious or catastropic brake failure

   This message was brought to you by the national association of brake rotor vendors

2. Toolmonger » Blog Archive » How To Replace Your Front Brakes Says:
   June 8th, 2007 at 1:20 pm

   [...] Before you jump into the task, though, give our recent “Doing Your Own Brakes” One Beer Podcast a listen as well! [...]

3. Dave Says:
   October 9th, 2007 at 9:52 am

   Don’t bleed your brakes unless you need to. It is not a part of normal brake maintenance and does not need to be done regularly like oil changes or brake pad replacement. Your brakes should only be bled after introducing air into the system. If you take the brake line off of the caliper, or open any line joint or bleeder, you need to bleed the brakes. If you’re just replacing the pads, you shouldn’t ever need to open the system. If you do bleed your brakes, and you don’t know what you’re doing, you could just put more air into the system. Air in a hydraulic system is bad. Not being able to stop your car is also bad.

   And I DO mess with drum brakes. They’re not so bad. Get a shop manual, sit down on one side of the car and tear it apart. Even if you can’t remember how to put it back together and the book isn’t helping, you’ve still got the other side to look at.

4. Bob Says:
   July 28th, 2008 at 6:51 pm

   I’ll second doing your own brakes. I found a how-to online several months ago and it was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done to a car. It’s amazing people actually pay the money they do to get this done. It took me just over an hour and next time will probably take about 30 minutes. Total cost for an Infiniti J30 was about $75 for front pads. Rears are about $45. Oh, and a couple of beers!

5. EMS Says:
   November 19th, 2008 at 11:30 am

   Despite this article being over a year old, Dave I’d like to respectfully disagree with your comment “Don’t bleed your brakes unless you need to. It is not a part of normal brake maintenance and does not need to be done regularly…”

   Replacing/Flushing brake fluid -is- a regular maintenance item for many vehicle manufactures from Europe and Japan–I owned a VW that listed it, and currently own a Subaru that lists it. Additionally, I’d say that it probably -should- be an item for all other manufacturers.

   The typical schedules I’ve seen call for replacement of the fluid every 24-36 months, there may or may not be a mileage value tied to it as well.

   As you know brake fluid absorbs moisture, moisture affects your ability to brake, but most importantly it causes rust and corrosion within your brake lines and components. It also presents a good opportunity to inspect all your brake lines.

   But this type of work isn’t for everyone, so if you’re not comfortable working on drum brakes you probably should avoid this one.

   If you’re not going the 2-person route, then I’d recommend a power bleeder that forces pressure into the braking system at the master cylinder rather then the type that apply suction at the brake bleeder.

6. Randy Says:
   November 23rd, 2008 at 9:45 pm

   I used to think that doing your own brakes was dangerous…. one mistake and someone could die. But the same is true of driving. I work with a lady whose husband runs an automotive shop. She does the books there after leaving her day job, and has some stories to tell about the mechanics there. They hire ASE techs but some are real doosies. I’ve met some of them and now I do my own brakes. After having my rotors turned once at Checker, I also agree that its best to buy new rotors. I feel much more secure after doing my own brakes. Now when someone says, “that’s something you should leave up to the experts,” I say, “first you need to meet the experts!”

7. Topgun Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 2:28 am

   I haven’t heard anyone mention the biggest plus for doing your own brakes: Your wife will look at you in a whole different light after you fix her squeaky/grinding brakes all by yourself. Like you’re Superman… at least for a week or so.

8. kif Says:
   February 24th, 2009 at 9:51 pm

   The biggest advantage to doing your own brakes is that you are going to have time to inspect and clean/replace all the little parts, such as sliding pins, clips, pistons etc. You will use the suitable high-temp grease and anti-squeal and everything. It will be a very solid job and probably double the life of your calipers - and by extension, pads. This is especially true where roads are salted and a little rust removal and clean up is in order.

   However, a brake-muffler shop is going to put in a cheap set of pads as quickly as possible. When you come back on the pad warranty, they will pitch you the $1,200 repair.

9. Henry Beach Says:
   April 29th, 2009 at 10:55 am

   I am going to try and do the job myself in a couple of months when I get some money. I went to the local brake shops and couldn’t find a quote under 500 bucks and I drive a 93′ chevy 1500. Everyone is saying I can do it for right at 100 or less if I do it myself. I will make sure and tell you how it goes and if I still can drive it afterwards. Wish me luck

10. Dave Says:
    June 22nd, 2009 at 10:21 am

    You guys are pretty funny. Of course you can do your own brakes! Take the plunge! I can’t believe how afraid people are to do stuff like this. It’s kind of a reflection on the way our society has gone in the past couple of decades, away from “do it yourself” culture and toward a “leave it to the professionals” attitude. Apologies to those of you who represent “the professionals,” but I think I’m smarter and more skilled than about 99% of you, and I don’t think you deserve $100 an hour just because you possess a tiny amount of technical knowledge that I don’t (yet) have.

11. Mistermetcal Says:
    September 7th, 2009 at 7:41 am

    Funny that I stumbled on this link. Yesterday I did the rear drums on my 2000 chrysler cirrus. My original plan was to completly avoid rear drums, but I recently sold my Police Interceptor and went for the freebee cirrus. I couldn’t turn down a 2000 cirrus with 30K original miles owned by my mother FOR FREE!
    Being a northern car, the rear drums were rusted onto the hub, but with some CRC freeze spray, WD-40 and a chisel I was able to free them and the jobe took me less than 3 hours.
    Do yourself a favor and check to see if they sell a brake hardware kit for your car. It was nice to replace the shoes and all the springs with NEW parts.

    I always take a photo with my Digital Camera so I can reference the exact assembly that I am working on. The shop manuals usually are very good, but sometimes they switch from side to side and confuse me.

    Good luck, take your time and take a photo.

    Happy Stopping!

12. m Says:
    September 7th, 2009 at 9:26 am

    s

13. Mitch Says:
    September 7th, 2009 at 9:40 am

    oops, sorry, that was me. I think Dave is correct when he says you don’t routinely have to bleed your brakes. Unless you opened the system for some reason. And EMS is correct in that fluid changes are routine maintenance items every 2 years or so.

    I’ve got the Motive Power Bleeder like EMS says. Works great on the Audi where it just screws onto the reservoir. I got the adapter plate for my Caravan reservoir but it’s too tight in there. Anyone have suggestions?

    I got the SpeedBleeders http://www.speedbleeder.com/ for one person bleeding on the Caravans. They work great too.

    I second Randy’s comment. Two separate ‘pro’ mechanics installed front brake (granted they were aftermarket upgrade brake kits) and routed the lines in such a way the stainless braided lines eventually failed. The results weren’t hilarious but very very luckily, not catastrophic. That’s when I started doing these things myself. Now, with the encouragement above, I’ll try the rear drums myself too.

    @Dave “but I think I’m smarter and more skilled than about 99% of you,”
    Even if I’m not smarter and I’m not more skilled than the pros, chances are I’m much more careful and thorough and precise when I’m working on my own car. (look at my two ruptured brake lines)

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