How to Inspect Brake Pads

Video Transcript

MARK BLOCKER: Okay, in this segment, we're going to cover inspecting the brake system and that's just the portion of the brake system directly applicable with the rear wheel. And what we want to do prior taking apart the brake system, we want to look it over thoroughly. Check the brake hoses and make sure there's dry rot, cracks or kinks in those. Check the alignment and the routing of the manual parking brake cable. And a good visual inspection of the caliper assembly, the sliding and the pads themselves and you'll get a better look at the pads once you get the caliper apart. But if you get a look of everything while it's sitting in there and you pull apart and you see one pad's worn more than the other or the are pads worn cockeyed. And you look at it and you see calipers trying to sit there cockeyed, then you know why those pads ended up in that position. It gives you more information in case you've got another problem to help you sort out what's causing the problem. Because if you pull out brake parts and one caliper or one brake pad is worn more than the other brake pad and you put it back together the same way you took it apart, you might be putting the problem right back into your system. It could be something related to a brake pad not sliding correctly because of lubrication or any number of things. But that's the importance of inspecting the system. You want to pick up those flaws or deficiencies or identifications of why various parts didn't wear correctly so you can verify what's causing the problem, so that you ensure doing your rear brake replacement and servicing that you get that issue corrected. So, we're not putting a problem back on the vehicle with a new set of brake pads to wear incorrectly or give us weaker or lesser braking capabilities because of a problem binding or the caliper not moving correctly because something else is worn or out of its service limits. So, at this time, we're just going to look over the rubber brake hose that goes from the back and that's the rubber section that's connecting the caliper to the steel line on the body. That allows for the rear suspension travel, the rubber hose allows the flexibility of movement. And it's going to be hard to see in your camera angles but you'll need to stick your hand into the wheel a little bit, follow that brake hose. It runs down through the trailing arm and up there. This one appears to be in good conditions. There's no signs of dry rot, cracking or breakage. You'll need to put your hand back into the back corner of the rear wheel to see the parking brake cable. You'll see the cable assembly, its mounting bracket, a rubber boot that goes over the end of the cable where it goes up and connects to the caliper. You want to make sure those are all in place. They look correctly. The brackets are bent or signs of kinking or wearing. And after having inspected that, try and get a good visual, it's a little bit harder to see the actual pads themselves. Check the relationship of the alignment between the caliper mounting bracket and the caliper itself, everything looks to be in good condition and functioning correctly, we'll go ahead and replace the brake, disassemble the brake component. Watch our next segment on removing the caliper.

Watch these related videos

• 
  How to Inspect the Car Brake Hose

  playlist Views: 11,526

• 
  How to Inspect a Brake System

  playlist Views: 896

• 
  How to Inspect Brake Pads

  playlist Views: 5,310

• 
  Inspecting the Rotor & Brake Pads for Changing Disc Brakes

  playlist Views: 23,977

• 
  Seating Brake Pads

  playlist Views: 845

• 
  How to Inspect a Brake Hose

  playlist Views: 4,765

Community Members who...

• Favorited this Video
• Rated This Video

Top Tags