Well, me and a buddy are gonna go at my breaks tommorrow. I've got disc in the front and drums in the back. What parts other than the obvious should I pick up when I go to grab pads and shoes.
Easy just pick-up semi-matalic pads & shoes , cut the drums & rotars , vacum all the old fluid or flush it out by pumping, pack the front bearings, check all the hoses , adjust , maybe 3hrs and thats driving to have the brake parts cut, I needed a new mastercylnder after flushing and adjusting there good as new......... get high temp wheel bearing grease, cotter pins and take your time do one side at a time if your new , this way you have the other side to look at.............................good luck
How about a super easy, can't miss way to bleed brakes...
Garden Sprayer Pressure Bake Bleeder
1 each pump type garden sprayer, 1 - 1 ½ gallon capacity (size doesn’t matter much, it just has to be cheap and small enough to be easy to work with)
6-10 feet 3/8” clear plastic tubing
1 each ¼” brass pipe tee
1 each ¼” pipe to 3/8: hose adapter
1 each pressure gauge 0-60 PSI or so – all you’ll ever need is 5- 10 PSI, so the gauge range doesn’t have to be high.
1 each large rubber stopper – this is the hard part to find. It may take some searching to find one that is a snug push fit to the inside of the filler port on the master cylinder. You can use silicone rubber to seal a brass fitting to an old master cylinder cap, but they tend to leak too much.
Home Depot has some ¼” brass pipe stock that is continuously threaded in the electric lamp repair department, along with the brass nuts that go with it. This is better than a pipe nipple, since the nuts can be used to secure the pipe in the cap or stopper.
OR if you can’t find the threaded pipe stock,
1 each ¼” nipple, 1 ½”- 2” long
The rubber stopper needs a hole drilled in it for the ¼” pipe nipple or threaded pipe stock. After you drill the hole, use some silicone gasket sealer to seal the pipe nipple as you push it into the rubber stopper. If you used the threaded pipe stock, use the nuts to secure the stock into the stopper.
If you can’t find a suitable rubber stopper, an old master cylinder cap can be used. Drill a ½” hole in the center for the pipe fitting. Cut the brass pipe stock to about 1”- 1 ½” long, the exact length isn’t too important. Push it through the hole in the master cylinder cap and thread one nut on top of the pipe stock where it sticks though the cap. Put another nut on the other side of the cap to lock the pipe stock in place. Apply some silicone rubber gasket sealer to both sides and when it is dry, screw the ¼” pipe that sticks out of the top of the cap into the tee.
Remove the sprayer hose and wand from the garden sprayer. You may find it easier just to cut the sprayer hose off short and connect it to the 3/8” plastic tubing. The idea is that the 3/8” tubing connects to the pickup tube inside the sprayer in a reliable, leak proof fashion. Another alternative is to remove the spray nozzle from the end of the spray wand and connect the 3/8” tubing to the wand. This leaves the hand valve in place and may be useful to start/stop the flow of brake fluid.
The 3/8” plastic tubing connects to the pipe tee using a push on hose barb type adapter. The pipe tee has one port for the gauge, one for the 3/8” hose and the other to connect to the rubber stopper or master cylinder cap that you modified.
Fill the pump sprayer with a quart of brake fluid. Set the garden sprayer on the ground and screw the pump handle down tight, and pump until brake fluid fills the plastic tubing. Then put the modified stopper or master cylinder cap on the master cylinder and pump slowly to make sure that nothing leaks or pops loose. No leaks, continue pumping until you get 5-10 PSI. Put a 6”-12” length of clear plastic tubing on the bleeder ports. Then open the bleeder ports on the wheel cylinders one at a time and bleed until the bubbles are gone. I use a 2 liter soda bottle with a coat hanger to catch the fluid . DO NOT REUSE THE OLD BRAKE FLUID. Repeat the process until you have finished all 4 wheels. You will have to pump the sprayer several times to maintain the 5-10 PSI needed to do the job. When finished bleeding, loosen the pump handle to relieve the pressure, remove the stopper/modified master cylinder cap and test the pedal.
on fronts: a brake piston retractor. they are a few bucks at the parts store and work well. i have used thumb power or pliers before. do clean and grease the carrier pins that the brake calipers slide on - if they bind, the brakes will drag, overheat, seize, etc. pretty important.
i use synthetic grease on those pins after cleaning them (steel wool or scotchbrite pad, carb cleaner, etc).
for the rears, they make special brake shoe tools. i dont have any - i use needle nose pliers, linemans pliers, screwdrivers, etc. just whatever makes sense. i have never bought the right tools for the job, so i dont know how they work - i bet they are nice.
ill add: in regard to pads, i have been running carbon metallic pads and like them pretty well. i might do some online searching about them vs semi metallic or organic pads - i did and chose the C-M. note that i have not tried them on the stang - i run them on the 4th gen Camaro. seem pretty nice. i have not gone through a set to give long term opinions.
BTW, Autozone sells the pads for ~30 bucks here.
you will want to use some grease on the contact points on the shoes too. clean the backing plate up real good first. also whip out your repair manual and/or do one side at a time. it is easy to forget how springs go. and get a spring kit for the rear - worth the money to put new springs in there, IMHO.
There are two specific tools for doing drum brakes that will make life much easier; each one for installing the two different types of springs. You can make do without these tools, but I say just make the investment now and save yourself the time/headaches later.
I used my new speed bleeders today after reinstalling the rear end w/ the new gears, they worked great. Be careful putting the springs on the rear brakes, I busted my lip and broke about half of one of front teeth off last night, no joke, it was the bottom spring to the adjuster. I knew better then to do it how I was doing it, sometimes not thinking hurts.
You might want to get the spring removal/replacement tool for the drum brakes. I've replaced many rear drum brakes without it, but it's hard and it can be dangerous. I know someone who cracked a rib when the vise grip pliers he was using slipped off the spring, and he went flying backwards into his tool chest.
I think you can loan the tool from AutoZone if you don't want to buy it.
Replacing the rear adjusters is a good idea too. If the teeth on them are worn out, the rears won't self-adjust properly and it's harder to manually adjust them.