How to Change the brake pads on a 2006 Ford Escape

It happened one day when I was going to work. Every time I would turn right the rear driver's side wheel would make a sound of metal contacting metal. The sound would vary with the speed of my Escape. When I finally got to work I touched the rim of each tire to see if one was unusually hot. This would indicate that the brake caliper on the unusually hot rim might have a piston that is not moving freely. All rims felt about the same warmth. I did notice that the rotor on the rear passenger side wheel was not smooth to the touch and had several deep grooves.

In advance, I ordered new brake pads and rotors for both the front and rear of my Ford Escape. I have such little spare time these days that it didn't make sense for me to pull my brakes apart to fix the problem at hand only to have to pull it apart again in a years time to replace the rest of the brake pads because they wore out. These days I also always replace the rotors at the same time I replace the brake pads. I replace the rotors instead of having them machined because very few auto parts stores machine rotors these days and the ones that do don't always do a good job of removing the spiral caused by machining causing the brake pads to rap against the center hub as the brakes are applied. Besides I was able to get front and rear rotors for my car for under $200.

Before jacking up the car I put wheel blocks on the front wheels to make sure my Escape would not roll then I used four floor jacks, two by each rear wheel under the frame, to make sure my Escape would not fall. I used two floor jacks at each wheel so if one jack would fail the other will still keep the Escape from falling.

I started by looking at the rear passenger side wheel, that is the one that is making the metallic noise. You can see the grooves in the rear passenger side brake rotor.

The first thing you need to do is compress the pistons back into the caliper, you do this by putting a big C -Clamp around the front and back of the caliper then turning the screw on the C-clamp until the pistons are all the way back in the caliper, you need to do this so that the new brake pads fits. Next it is time to remove the caliper, there are two slider pins, one at the top and the other at the bottom, that hold the brake caliper in place. I call them "slider pins" because the brake caliper slides on these pins to compensate for brake pad wear and for the brake rotor wobble. You need to remove the caps and use a hex socket to remove the pins.

Once the pins are removed you need to slide the caliper off of the rotor. This may take a little persuasion as the caliper may be rusted in place.

As you can see, in my situation my brake pads still have brake pad material attached to them. I am not sure why these brake pads caused the grooves in my rotor so I am going to replace them anyway.

Remove the brake pads, they are just held in place by metal clips. You need to suspend the brake caliper so that it does not put undue stress on the rubber brake line.

Next you have to remove the rotor, the first thing you have to do is remove the expletive clips. Those metal clips on the studs that are holding the rotor on. I call them expletive clips because most likely when you are trying to remove this clips you will hurt your fingers and yell an expletive! You can just clips these off with a good pair of wire cutters and discard them, they are not needed and were just put there to hold the rotors on during the assembly process. Notice this picture shows the brake caliper is not removed. This was mistake; I forgot to take a picture of the rotor with the brake caliper removed.

Below is a picture of the rotor after it has been removed. The rotor may need some "persuading" to come off. It is probably fused to the hub by rust. I had to pound on the rotor for ten minutes with a mallet to get it to come off. I recommend replacing the rotors at the same time as you replace the brake pads. My rotors had such deep grooves cut into them that turning was not an option. Even if they didn't have grooves cut in them I would replace them anyway as I have yet to find an auto parts store that does a good job on turning rotors. Notice the brake shoes in the picture? These brake shoes are connected to the parking brake. Only the rear brakes are equipped with these brake shoes. You typically do not have to worry about replacing these shoes unless you accidentally leave the parking brake on while driving.

Time to prep the new rotors; you must first remove the light oil on the rotors used to keep them from rusting during shipping. I used Prep-All, a product used to remove wax and grease from a surface before painting.

Before putting the new rotor on, treat the hub to a coat of anti-seize compound so you won't have a problem with removing the rotor in the future.

Next you need to clean up the slider pins with a very fine grain sandpaper to remove any rust. If there is rust on the slider pins the brake calipers will not float freely and will cause premature wear of the brake pads.

Then I coat the contact points that the brake pads slide on with some more anti-seize compound, careful not to get any on the surface of the brake rotors. If you do, wipe it off which a clean paper towel.

I also treat the back of the brake pads with some anti-seize compound to prevent the brake pads from squealing. Make sure you don't get any anti-seize compound on the wear surface of the brake pads. If you do wipe it off which a clean paper towel.

Here is a picture of the caliper with pads, ready to be attached onto the backing plate with the slider pins.

Make sure you coat the slider pins with high temperature grease before screwing them into the backing plate.

Always, always, always torque the slider pings to specification. The Haynes manuals lists the torque specs at the end of the brake section chapter. I am sure Chiltons and other publisher will list the torque specs as well.

I have a low cost Craftsman torque wrench from Sears. From certain angle I cannot read the gauge so I put masking tape on the dial indicator to indicate the proper torque.

Make sure you put the caps on, over the end of the slider pins. This will prevent water, rust, corrosion, and salt from getting in screwing up the hex head.

Here is the finished product waiting for the wheel to be installed.

Make sure you coat the lug bolts with anti-seize compound. You will thank me later when you have to remove the wheel.

Also put a light coating of anti-seize compound on the back of the rim where the rim mates with the brake rotor. This will prevent the two from rusting together necessitating the use of the persuader (a big mallet) to get them apart.

With the wheel still off of the ground, tighten the lug nuts in star pattern until they are snug.

Remove the jacks stands and carefully lower the wheel until the tire is just touching the ground. Use the torque wrench to tighten the lugs nuts to the specification in your repair manual. This is very important!!! If you over tighten the rim it could cause the brake rotor to warp!

OK, so that is it! You did one wheel now on to the three other wheels. It should go must faster on the other wheels as they are pretty much all the same. The only difference is that the calipers, break shoes, and rotors are bigger on the front brakes due to the need for more stopping power and on the front brakes there ar enot brake shoes for the parking brake.