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Replaced the front brake pads and rotors on my car
I had done motorcycles before, but not a car. Definitely prefer doing it myself over paying somebody else to do it.
2007 Accord. I ordered the Factory Service Manual ($59), but it's not here yet. But videos and web pages seemed to indicate it was easy enough.
Picked up new pads and rotors at autozone last night. I could get better prices online probably, but it was worth the convenience.
Tried changing them last night, discovered screws in the rotors that it turns out Honda is notorous for. Needed to buy a hand impact driver. So I got one of those today. They seem to be so heavily associated with Honda's damn rotor screws that it seems like Honda really should do something different.
The trick to the impact driver seems to be to hold it like you're trying to rotate the screw in the direction you want to rotate it, but not pushing in, before you whack it with a hammer. Once I had that down, it worked great with my normal hammer, and the 3lb hammer was unnecessary.
Tapping the rotors off after removing those screws was probably my most legitimate use ever of my 3lb hammer. I love that thing.
Also, I highly recommend a breaker bar. I don't know if I could even have gotten the lug nuts off of my wheels with the thing that came with my car. So I keep the breaker bar and 19mm socket in my trunk. (12mm and 17mm sockets for the brake calipers? #3 Phillips for the rotor screws?)
I took this opportunity to finally pick up a floor jack. And that as an excuse to check out the new Harbor Freight store in Medford. It was a lot smaller than I expected, but I liked it. They had a pallet full of the jack I wanted. Also picked up an $8 brake piston compressor (like this) - nice, and a $7 rear brake piston cube tool - haven't used that yet.
I also recommend PB Blaster for getting things unstuck. It seems to be the most highly recommended penetrating oil.
And you need jack stands. Having a car only supported by a jack while working on it isn't safe, because jacks fail.
I started wearing nitrile gloves for this stuff, because it got me deeply filthy.
Edit 1:
The jack stand had two tests. 1) The handle socket was held horizontal by basically a bit of wire hanger. It was in the way of inserting the handle, and basically needed to be destroyed to be removed. When I need to destroy something attached to something I just bought, I prefer explicit directions. The directions didn't mention it. I removed it with bolt cutters. 2) The instructions said I needed to loosen a screw to bleed air from the system. It was impossible to get to that screw. I eventually figured out I needed to remove for screws to remove what turned out to be an access panel. That was pretty unclear to me. 3) It also said I needed to fill it with hydraulic fluid, which was discouraging, because there was no way I was getting any that late. But it was already full.
I got the Harbor Freight jack because the Craftsman jack has a history of failure. So I figure the HF one probably is about as good, and costs half as much. Also, it was recommended by #cars on EFNet.
The trick to the front caliper compressor is to put an old brake pad between the tool and the piston. This may be sufficiently obvious. (I saw it in a video.)
Links are to where I bought things, I do recommend buying those things where I bought them.
2007 Accord. I ordered the Factory Service Manual ($59), but it's not here yet. But videos and web pages seemed to indicate it was easy enough.
Picked up new pads and rotors at autozone last night. I could get better prices online probably, but it was worth the convenience.
Tried changing them last night, discovered screws in the rotors that it turns out Honda is notorous for. Needed to buy a hand impact driver. So I got one of those today. They seem to be so heavily associated with Honda's damn rotor screws that it seems like Honda really should do something different.
The trick to the impact driver seems to be to hold it like you're trying to rotate the screw in the direction you want to rotate it, but not pushing in, before you whack it with a hammer. Once I had that down, it worked great with my normal hammer, and the 3lb hammer was unnecessary.
Tapping the rotors off after removing those screws was probably my most legitimate use ever of my 3lb hammer. I love that thing.
Also, I highly recommend a breaker bar. I don't know if I could even have gotten the lug nuts off of my wheels with the thing that came with my car. So I keep the breaker bar and 19mm socket in my trunk. (12mm and 17mm sockets for the brake calipers? #3 Phillips for the rotor screws?)
I took this opportunity to finally pick up a floor jack. And that as an excuse to check out the new Harbor Freight store in Medford. It was a lot smaller than I expected, but I liked it. They had a pallet full of the jack I wanted. Also picked up an $8 brake piston compressor (like this) - nice, and a $7 rear brake piston cube tool - haven't used that yet.
I also recommend PB Blaster for getting things unstuck. It seems to be the most highly recommended penetrating oil.
And you need jack stands. Having a car only supported by a jack while working on it isn't safe, because jacks fail.
I started wearing nitrile gloves for this stuff, because it got me deeply filthy.
Edit 1:
The jack stand had two tests. 1) The handle socket was held horizontal by basically a bit of wire hanger. It was in the way of inserting the handle, and basically needed to be destroyed to be removed. When I need to destroy something attached to something I just bought, I prefer explicit directions. The directions didn't mention it. I removed it with bolt cutters. 2) The instructions said I needed to loosen a screw to bleed air from the system. It was impossible to get to that screw. I eventually figured out I needed to remove for screws to remove what turned out to be an access panel. That was pretty unclear to me. 3) It also said I needed to fill it with hydraulic fluid, which was discouraging, because there was no way I was getting any that late. But it was already full.
I got the Harbor Freight jack because the Craftsman jack has a history of failure. So I figure the HF one probably is about as good, and costs half as much. Also, it was recommended by #cars on EFNet.
The trick to the front caliper compressor is to put an old brake pad between the tool and the piston. This may be sufficiently obvious. (I saw it in a video.)
Links are to where I bought things, I do recommend buying those things where I bought them.
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