Brake job on an 89

[stoutscout]

Front pads need to be replaced. Any special tools needed? Difficulty rating? Tricks? Recommended pads and fluid? Cheapest place to buy supplies?

Thanks in advance.

[dirty dan]

'89 1500 should have disc brakes.
Pretty easy job. If you've never done it get a Haynes Manual.
Drum and Shoe are a little tricky, and require some inexpensive sring tools but are still doable with a manual.
Both are pretty dirty jobs.

[stoutscout]

Hey the mechanic down at Mark Morris Service Center (Firestone) said it would cost $600 to replace the calipers and brakes. Said they have to tear into the 4wd system. Is this true? How do I know if the calipers are bad? Is this hard to do myself in my driveway? Is this place like Aamco, where everything costs at least $600, everytime.

[Boomyal]

If the rotors are ok all you need is a 6" C clamp and a block of wood.
Remove wheel (duh), carefully pry open the brake pads to give a little clearance from the rotor. unbolt (2) the caliper from the spindle mounts and slide the caliper off the rotor. Remove the pads, place a 1x block across the piston and use you C clamp to compress the piston all the way back into the caliper. Make sure that your fluid resevoir does not overflow. Install the new pads, remount the caliper and repeat on the other side. BE CAREFULL, the first time you apply the brakes. The vehicle won't stop untill the brakes are pumped a few times.

[Ace Greenberg]

I have a 1990 Diesel K1500 and the only hard part about the job is actually taking off and putting the wheels back on (6 lugs and the factory aluminum wheels seem to weld themselves to the hubs every time). I timed it and it took me just over 7 minutes to remove the caliper, compress pistons with a cheap hand-screwed compression tool, remove pads from caliper, replace pads in caliper. Then it took less than 5 minutes to replace caliper onto rotor and mounting plate.

Removing the wheel took 10 minutes because it was bonded to the hub and replacing it took 5.

The $600 price is probably based upon the fact that they must disassemble the auto-locking hubs on the front of 4x4s in order to remove the rotor which is mounted BEHIND(!?!) the hubs. This job is a MAJOR PITA and takes a couple of hours due to the time spent ungreasing and regreasing the autolocking hub components - and untorqueing and retorqueing the &^%$# great big sort of castle nut inside the hub. It requires a special impact socket with tabs to engage the "castle" nut's slots. Even the rotor job is not so hard, it's just greasy as all hell and time-consuming. This 1990 Suburban is a diesel, though, and as such has the same brakes as a 2500 (apparently).

My 1999 Diesel K2500 is easier, but the *&^%$ rotors seem to be welded onto the hubs (heat + moisture * 1000's of repeats = permanent bond).

Ace