Question about brake noise.

Your "grace period" is kinda short, because the sound you hear is metal rubbing on metal. The sooner you change them out, the better you will be.

As for being a "shade tree" fix that you can handle, I would make that a qualified "yes", assuming you have had experience in doing other cars. When you compress the brake calipers, make sure you don't overflow the brake cylinder tank, that that will be a mess.

Also, check the disks carefully for major wear or grooves. Saturn didn't make these things too thick, and it don't take much damage to force you into replacing them ...

1-Buy a manual.

Do not let the caliper hang on the brake hose, hang it from the spring with wire.

The caliper bracket bolts may be rusted and hard to remove, use quality wrench and watch your knuckles, use nevr-seize for install.

IMHO rotors (discs) should be replaced at every pad replacement. Buy good quality pads and offshore (cheap) rotors. New rotors are very little more than the cost of turning your old ones which will leave them thin and likely to warp and cause chattering and uneven braking.

Make sure the long bolts the caliper slides on are rust free (and clean the caliper holes) and coat the bolts with a good quality nevr-seize.

Replace them SOON. Saturn disk are easy to change. If you don't have a manual there is there is a FAQ site that is part of a Honda group that is very good. Honda and Saturn disks or not all that different.See

Just some more info to help you. Goto your local auto parts store and pick up a Haynes manual, it'll help make the job easier and worth the $15.

Also, you can upgrade your brakes for better performance and problably chaper too. Get Akebono brake pads, they are virtually dust free and grip better. If you are replacing the discs too, go with Wagner (which is OEM) or Brembo discs.

marx404

I would have to agree with the person telling you to buy a haynes or chiltons manual. It will walk you through it step by step. All you will need as far as tools once the wheel is off is an 18mm socket, a 14mm socket, some extensions, and a ratchet. You also will need to get some caliper grease and some LOCTITE.

Use the grease on the caliper pins, and use the LOCTITE on the caliper mounting bracket bolts. Also, make sure you torque them down tight. As tight as you tighten your lugnuts. If not using loctite and torquing down good, bad things could happen. But if both steps are taken, good braking for thousands of miles to come!!!

I have done this job several times. At no time have I seen evidence of the bracket mounting bolts loosening or losing clamping force. My experience has been that heat and moisture combine to cause these bolts to corrode and seize. They require a good wrench with a long handle to remove (especially the first time). I am a believer in Loctite when needed, but in this application I use nevr-seize thread lubricant as it increases the clamping force and prevents further corrosion so the bolts can be removed without heating the next time removal is required. YMMV.

I am not familiar with the properties of caliper grease but suspect it is similar to any of the common nevr-seize type thread lubricants. I have had good service using nevr-seize on the caliper slides and also on the wheel studs. I apply it to the studs carefully and not to excess before mounting the wheel. I try not to allow any to get on the cone surface of the nut or wheel. as always when replacing wheels you MUST recheck bolts torque after

just my .02

Thanks for all the excellent advice. I got some aftermarket ceramic pads at NAPA. I have a big breaker-bar wrench, so imagine that should do the trick along with my sockets and extensions. Don't have the money to change the rotars right now... you know how it is. Down the read I may need to replace everything with top-of-the-line stuff, but for the moment I'm just trying to keep my wheels on the road. Pretty nerve wracking driving with the hand brake and gear compression, so can't wait to do the replacement. (I can use the brakes if absolutely necessary, but am trying not to for the moment.)

Will let you know how it goes.

You dont need ceramic pads, you're not running 200mph. Buy wearever gold pads and china made rotors. Pads should be around 30, rotors should be around 25 each.

Well, I bought the cheapest pads they had it Napa. (SAFETY-STOP "with ceramic formulation") They happened to be $44. Should I take them back? Where would they have Wearever Gold? I thought rotars were like $500? If they're only $50 I might as well replace those, and not worry about scoring the old ones. Seriously, only $25 apiece?

I think most people [who don't do the brake work themselves and only take it to a shop] may think this as well. The rotors that I buy are around $18 from Autozone if I recall correctly. I've noticed no difference between them either on my daily driver or on my race car and some premium rotors I used to buy at more than 3x that cost.

Most people would do the rotors at the same time as pads, because often old rotors are worn full of grooves. If you don't get them resurfaced or replace them, they'll wear those grooves into your new pads and give you less-than-optimum braking until they do.

I've been using Napa pads for years (Rayloc lifetime) on the street car with great results. I love them because there's virtually no brake dust from them.

Lane [ lane (at) evilplastic.com ]