Replace Brake Pads And Rotors on Toyota Tacoma

Replace Brake Pads And Rotors on Toyota Tacoma | Alright today we’re going to replace the brake pads on a ’98 Toyota Tacoma. It’s actually a super simple process. These are what the brake pads look like. I’m going to link these in the video description below so you have a quick and easy place to buy them from. Amazon has them for pretty cheap so go ahead and check that out. And then what I’ve done up to this point is I’ve loosened up all of the lug nuts on the tire before I lifted it off the ground. Then I went ahead and put the jack on the knuckle underneath the tire and that lifted the tire up and off the ground. And then I put a secondary jack right there just in case, you know, anything happens when the tire’s off the vehicle. That’s just more of like a precautionary thing. Now that the tire’s up and I have the lug nuts loose, I’m going to go ahead and loosen up the rest of the lug nuts and then pop the tire off and then I’ll show you the caliper where the brake pads are located.

This is called the caliper right here. This is what holds the brake pads. You can kind of see down inside of them right here how worn down they are. This guy is called the rotor and with the rotor, you can kind of see this is where the brake pads press against it to stop your car, and right now there’s kind of a little lip up at the top, and that just kind of goes to show like what’s being worn away when the brake pads clamp down on the rotor itself.

So for me it’s about time to replace my rotors as well. On the caliper itself, if you look around on the backside you’re going to see two 17 millimeter bolts: this one and then the one a little bit farther down. And those need to come out in order for the caliper to slide away from the vehicle. So I’ve pulled the caliper up and off the rotor itself, and I’ve also supported it with a little bungee cable so that it doesn’t put any pressure on this brake line right here, cuz if those break you’re in it for a much more expensive repair. So here’s how to release the brake pads: there’s this little wire thing that you just press down and pull out. And then you’ll be able to pull the wire out of each of these little pins. Then these pins come out like this and that releases the brake pads so they can slide out through the other side. Also this little metal thing can just be pushed down and then lifted up and out. It also helps if you take like a nail or something, or a screw, and stick it through that little hole.

And then you can hit the end of this and that will also push the little pins out. I found that that helped out a lot as well. Anyway, so now these two brake pads will fall through the other side. So one thing we have to do right now…as you can see with the old brake pads, they’re a lot closer together because they’ve been worn down so much. The new brake pads take up a lot more room. So what we have to do here on the caliper itself, we have to push back these pistons a little bit to make room for the extra thickness of the new brake pads so that it will still fit over the rotor when we go to put it back on. So inside the engine bay there’s this brake fluid box right here, so I’m going to go ahead and unscrew the cap of this and pop it off so that brake fluid will be able to rise up as I compress that piston down.

So I’m going to leave it on the top so no debris or dust falls inside of there. But since we don’t need the old brake pads anyway, I went ahead and tossed one of the old ones back in there and used a giant c-clamp to clamp down on the brake pad itself, which in turn is compressing these little pistons right here to make room. So with each turn of this, I compress that piston down just a little bit more. And then with the new brake pads remember that the holes on the top go inside the caliper so that those little metal rods can slide through them again. Go ahead and clip that up. Lock it in place. Now everything’s in place. The two pins, the metal plate, the little latch thing. I did have to rotate these a little bit to get the holes to line up for this little bracket.

Anyway, if you are going to replace your rotors, usually you replace your rotors if this ledge is too big or if it’s kind of jerking when you’re slowing down. When you’re compressing your brakes and the car kind of chugs, good chances are it’s the front rotors that are warped a little bit. All that these are is they’re just loose and you can just pop them off the vehicle like that. And that’s your rotor itself. And then that’s the part of your truck. So these are actually relatively inexpensive. I’m going to leave mine on for now. If you need to replace these I will link them also in the video description below. I painted these calipers probably about 2 years ago so if you want to see a video on how I did that go ahead and click right here and that will give you a little walk through on the type of paint that I used and the whole process behind that.

Anyway all I’m going to do right now is just pop on the tire and cap the brake fluid again after I finish the other tire. When you replace one set of brake pads you’re going to want to do both the left and right side of the vehicle. If you have any questions go ahead and leave them in the comments below. Don’t forget that I’ve linked the parts that you’ll need in the video description below. And also, before you drive anywhere you’re going to want to make sure to pump the brake pedal a few times and that will make sure to clamp the brake pads closer to the rotor so that you won’t have any delay when you’re braking for the first time. So make sure that you press on the brake pedal enough times till it feels like normal again. It’ll feel really loose for a little bit. Probably only took me like 20, 25 minutes to do one side of the vehicle.

So I would say, you know, about an hour process to do both sides. If you have any questions make sure to leave them in the comments below. Don’t forget to “like” if this video helped you and don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks for watching!.