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Changed Front Discs And Pads Over The Weekend


hawkerpaul
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I finally got round to changing the front discs+pads Saturday.

The old pads had started to scrape a bit and the discs were heavily lipped, so I bought discs+pads for the same price as toyota wanted just to replace the pads (£80). I had Mintex pads, and the discs were from a company called ComLine, who supplied Allied Nippon discs, which seem to be pretty good to be honest.

Job took about 2 hours in all, and would have been much shorter had it not been for the discs being so lipped I couldnt get the caliper off, so had to prize the piston back in situ, the damn awkward clip that holds the outside pad in place being next to impossible to put back, and also hit a problem with the top caliper bolt (passenger side) as room to get a socket and wrench to it was terrible due to a big nut directly behind it.

Anyway, all looks well now, as I also painted the drums and rims of the discs with hammerite to avoid the awful looking rusting that appears there after a while.

Braking seems much better now. Old discs/pads seemed to take a while for braking to take affect, then all of a sudden, they kicked in sharply. They are now much smoother now, having much more progressive braking.

So job done. Just thought I'd share my experiences with you.

:thumbsup:

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Lovely, pity though you didn't document your changing progress with a digital camera for some future use as paper manuals always look different than real parts.

I was thinking about that in the future when my discs and pads will come to their end of life and if I'll be brave enough to trust myself and install new discs and pads by myself. In the end it's life-depending on car component. If I screw something up, I'll end up with a nasty damaged front and possible insurance claim :(

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I've done it on my Yaris (and lots of cars before). Very easy and as long as you note where all the shims go, difficult to get wrong. Digital camera as you dismantle if unsure.

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Not sure if its particular to my model (2006 1.3 T-Spirit, French VIN with the Teves braking system) but there were no shims. Its got a full main dealer service history and I took the original Toyota pads off and they were shimless, so I would suspect if it needed them, they would have been on there already.

Just put the mintex ones on, and they were an exact copy of the Toyota ones, complete with clips that go inside the piston for the inside pad.

Even if they do require shims, then they are certainly not needed as they are completely silent (so far!!)

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I've read Toyota manual for changing brakes and it looked quite complicated if not only they've made it look so. They've advised using some air compressor (to back off the master cylinder), advised detaching brake fluid pipes, bleeding the whole system from beginning etc. It scared me off quite quickly.

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Thats a bit of overkill really. Its only worth bleeding the system if need be (every 2 years I think the schedule states, but not 100% sure on this), so unless your pads need changing due to the result of checks in the appropriate service, I wouldnt bother.

You should be able to slide the caliper piston back quite easily with a G-Clamp or similar. In fact, as my discs were heavily lipped and I couldnt get the calipers off, I had to push it back with a flat-head screw driver (prized between the piston and the back brake pad) It went back quite easily. Before pushing back the piston to make room for the new pads to slide back on, just make sure you take the cap of the brake fluid reservoir first and put an old rag underneath in case some fluid over-spills when the piston goes back.

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When I did mine, I opened the bleed valve on the psiton, attached a bleeding pipe and clamped the flexible hose. Gently pushed back the piston by hand and fluid came out the bleed hose. Retightened bleed screw. No need for undoing hoses/no pressure on master cyclinder. So easy even I did it.

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