Changing brake pads on a 2002 Silverado

Hey,

My buddy's truck needs a brake job done on it. I am very comfortable doing it, but he is not. When I told him I would do it, he said that people have told him that you can not change the pads like normal (i.e. you can not push the piston back into the caliper without damaging the ABS system).

I have never heard of this, and I have worked on many newer cars/trucks without a problem. I ususally disconnect the negative battery cable when doing any work on vehicles.

Has anyone heard of this sort of problem before? Is there a specific procedure on changing the pads on a 2002 Silverado 2WD? Did a search and could not find anything regarding damaging the ABS while doing a simple pad swap.

Thanks in advance.

Thomas

I just did mine last weekend, and didn't have a bit of problems. One thing is that the back pads came up under a 99 instead of a 02.

Never heard of such a thing, you don't need to disconnect the negative battery to change the brakes....just use a c-clamp, to depress the calipers, unbolt the 2 bolts for the caliper, and 2 bolts for the mounting bracket if your changing the rotors....then bleed your system....and your done.....

call a bullshit on him

That is what I figured. I have never heard of something like changing pads hurting the ABS computer.

He was just concerned, as he had heard that it could hurt from a couple of different people. Just wanted to make sure.

Thanks!

99redsiverado is there any special procedures to bleeding the brake system on an abs system.

You don't need to bleed your brakes. Take the cap off the brake fluid reservoir, suck out a little with a clean turkey baster or syringe if there's too much fluid in there. Use a C-clamp to push in the caliper piston. Don't undo any brake lines or anything. I've done it this way on my '99 Silverado (ABS and all) as well as on a good number of other vehicles. Works well. The brake fluid reservoir should only be about half full any way, check your owners manual, GM advises against "topping the fluid off".

not on these trucks.....some chevys have a valve on the abs pump that does not allow conventional pump it up and break a line bleeding. im not sure the name of the valve but its not on these trucks...its mostly on cavaliers and older luminas i believe

Some cars I've worked on (90 lincoln continental and 90 Honda Prelude) you have to use a tool to "screw down" the caliper in the rear. You cannot use a C-clamp on it. Maybe that is what the guy was talking about?

yeah a lot of fords have the screw down but ive never seen one on a chevy...the wierdest caliper ive seen is on the rear of older miatas...you have to remove a bolt on the back of it before u squeeze it down or youll be buying a new caliper