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drs_install <- search key word
Difficulty: One Beer
If you ever refer to these posts, use drs<underscore>install, otherwise when folks search for them, they will get every post that refers to them as well as the orginal post, and that is a bad noise to signal ratio.
The 9-3's, 9-5's and Aero 9-5's use the same brake pads, even though the rotor diameters are different.
I ordered in EBC pads to deal with the very fast pad and rotor wear that folks are reporting with the 9-5s and the 9-3s. They arrived in one day and this looked like the last nice day before a chunk of winter which is coming tonite. So I wrenched my 3 day old Saab.
Tools: channel locks and a screw driver to deal with the hold down spring, 7mm hex key of bit.
Note that 7mm hex tools seem to be rare. Most key kits go from 6 to 8 and skip 7. So your first job is to see if you have one of these.
Materials, anti sieze, shop cloths, beer perhaps.
Jack up road wheel to take some of the load, tread still on pavement. Loosen wheel bolts, raise to get wheel off of the pavement and remove bolts and wheel.
If never done before, remove the rotor locking/indexing bolt with a 5mm hex key and apply antisieze and replace. Do not tighen too much. These are a horror show if they are rusted or too tight. Always make sure that the hex recess is clean and that hex key or bit and drive the tool in if needed to seat it. Folks who have trashed the hex detail of this bolt have been in a world of hurt, that is why we are doing this preventative maintenace. I see that the plating ia much better since 1995! You should do this step even if you are not going to change the pads, it is good preventative maintenace.
We are not replacing rotors in this post. So we are not removing the fixed part of the caliper, just the sliding bit.
With older pads, the caliper piston needs to be pushed back in. With this style of front brake I push the old pad back with a screwdriver or other implements of destruction. Please note that this technique can destroy the parking brake mechanism on rear brake calipers. THAT IS ANOTHER POST.
Study how the outer spring clip is mounted, and look again. Then use a screwdriver to pry it off and study it as you remove it. Do only one side at time so that you can look at the other when you start to question how it goes back on.
There two black rubber slightly tapered protrusions on the back side of things. There are two 'weather' caps to remove, these will come out with a thumb nail.
Now you can get at the two slider bolts which take a 7mm hex key or bit. These break free relatively easy when new, one side was tighter than the other BTW. The ends of the threaded ends are exposed to the elements and could be hard to remove.
You need to remove both, this is not a remove one and swing up type that I could see. Pull the caliper to the front then swing up and rest on top of the rotor and its back splash shield. The outboard pad stays where it is when you do this.
The inboard pad has spring fingers and insert into the cup shaped caliper piston. Just pull it out.
With the outboard pad, examine to see what of its ear edges contact the fixed part of the caliper. Now put antisieze on these surfaces, pad and caliper. Install the inboard pad into the piston recess, taking some care to not mis-align things and damage the outer piston boot with the spring fingers. I put some antisieze on the spring outer parts to facilitate this.
Put the outboard pad in place and place the caliper over this and the rotor. Put he slider bolts onto the hex key or bit and insert into the sliding caliper and move the caliper around a bit until things line up. Do the other one. Don't know the torque, it does not take much. Perhaps someone else will post the slider bolt lubricant to use.
Replace the weather caps. I put some penetrating rust preventer on the caps and inserted. Silicone grease might be good to. This is optional I expect.
Now you have to get the down springs on the outer face. These hold the moving and fixed calipers against each other, with the pad ears caught in the middle. Do one side at a time so that you can look at the way you it should go when you suspect that you are not doing it right. I can't explain the best way to approach this with a keyboard.
Now replace the wheel. But if never done before, apply some never sieze to the hub OD. Mine had lots of green grease from the factory. And if the hub face and wheel face are 'dry', smear a very light contaminatine film of never sieze on both. This will prevent rust on the iron welding and getting embedded into the aluminum surface. This material transfer is a real problem and this operation is preventative.
Snub the wheel bolts with the wheel in the air, then take some weight on the tire, torque to 90 ft-lb or thereabouts and lower to the ground. Torque wrenchs are not dead on accurate. Start to develop a feel for the right torque ramp-up resistance and trust that. Then note the setting that gets you there with your particular wrench. With new wheels or a new vehicle, check the torque after a day or two of driving as these new wheels tend to allow the torque to settle. No explaination that I can offer.
You are not done yet. There is one more step. If you skip the next step your life and Saab are in danger from initial weak braking effort.... and more.
New pads can have dangerously low stopping power and EBC pads are very much this way. This is dangerous. You need to get to a low traffic area and speed up and brake over and over again till you start to feel the brakes working well. Forget the 'baby the brakes for days stuff days'. You may need to get the brakes very hot, this is true for EBC pads. Avoid full stops durking this bedding in run. Do not stop with hot brakes and keep the pads clamped onto the rotors. There will be material transfer to the rotors, especially with pads like the EBC pads. That material transfer, while expremely thin, will feel as bad as a warped rotor. So when you see a report of "EBC warped my rotors", you know that the pads were not properly bedded in. Some suggest that the bedding in runs be continued until the pads are stinking hot or the metal rotors are discolored. I don't feel totally comfortable with that myself, but that is the direction that you need to be headed in during the bedding in runs.
9-5 Aero Wagon, 161 miles!!!
So I have some newish pads that I will post for sale some day, along with lots of stuff from my 95SET (rip)
posted by 65.68.10...
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