Installing Brakes, anybody know how easy it is? Options

[Silver94CelicaOw...]

Does anybody know how easy it is to install new brake rotors and pads on your own? I was just curious as to whether its a pretty straightfoward DIY job, or if you needed any expensive tools and training to do it.

[GeEkBoY]

Just got done my rears and everything went wrong. If you are only replacing your pads and rotors, then you do not need to disconect your brake lines from the calipers and won't therfore need to bleed the brakes.
Bleeding brakes is easy, but you have to have a second person to help. The problem I had was the rust. One of the calipers siezed on a slider pin. The bolt broke off and and could not get the boken bold segment out, tried to drill it out and screwed it up, so I had to buy the caliper mounting bracket. There is a blue silicon package you can buy for breaks that you use to bond the pads to the caliper. This reduces squealling. There is also break grease that you will have to get. You need to re-lube the slider pins that the caliper slides on or else they will seize up. be careful not to get any grease on any brake surfaces. Compressing the piston in the caliper should not be that hard unless it has seized, a C-clamp works well for that.

If nothing is seized, it is easy, else it is tough. Try and get a freind to help out who has done disk brakes before.

If you need to do the rear parking break (the drum inside the rotors) it is very tricky the first time and takes some dexterity.

good luck