Wednesday, November 24, 2010

How hard is it to change brakes on a 1998 chevy lumina?

My brakes wore out on my 1998 chevrolet lumina and i will probably need rotors and pads...i would like to know how much im looking at for a shop to do it and if possible could i do it myselfHow hard is it to change brakes on a 1998 chevy lumina?
Well its a GM product so it must be bad.... Kidding but it will help to have some of the right tools. If you don't have any of the tools I suggest Autozone and Advanced rent most of this stuff out pretty cheep. Obviously the Caliper needs to be removed from the mounting bracket first and remove the old pads from the retaining clips.You will need a Caliper compressor to push the piston back into the bores for the front disc breaks. Once you have done that you can put brake grease on the back of the pads making sure you get nothing on the friction surface and load them back into the caliper. Clean and grease the guide pins as well so the caliper can move well. Then just bolt it back on and your done with the front.

The Rear is a bit harder. You will need to purchase a break hardware kit with all the springs and a shoe hold down spring tool. The easiest way I have found to remove the springs would be to use a wire coat hanger to just unhook everything. The E Break clip is always a hassle but they sell tools to make it easy but a regular flathead screw driver will work fine to get it off. A pair of pliers to put the knew one on will work fine. Sometimes the hole which the E break rivet goes through needs to be drilled out to fit. Grease the backing plate on the 6 raised bumps where the shoes slide against. Grease and retract the self adjustor and then put everything back the way you found it and your done. It isn't as hard as I probably made it seem but it might be time consuming if its your first time. Make sure before you put the car in gear to pump the breaks about 10 times to be safe otherwise you won't be able to stop. Good luck How hard is it to change brakes on a 1998 chevy lumina?
Not hard if you have some basic tools and a little patience. Check out the %26quot;repair guides%26quot; on autozone.com. You will pay a lot more to have a shop do it, probably around $300 with rotors.