Over the past few days, I'd been hearing a pretty nasty squealing sound from the front of my 2005 Nissan Altima, and when I finally got the chance to pull the front wheels off, I found that my brake pads were pretty low. I found that replacing the pads on my Altima is like most cars, and I got the job done on my day off, and in time for the game.
When I removed the brake pads, I carefully pried the shim from the shim cover and shim from the inner brake pad, and the shim from the outer brake pad, using a flat-head screwdriver. Since my new pads did not come with the shims and shim covers, I saved these for reuse on the new pads. My rotors had some pretty heavy grooves in them, so I went ahead and removed the caliper bracket bolts with a breaker bar and socket, and pulled the rotor off of the hub -- the rotor was frozen to the hub, so I tapped it with a rubber mallet to free it.
I reinstalled the caliper bracket after installing the rotor, then tightened its bolts to between 53 and 72 foot-pounds. Before installing the pads, I aligned the shims with each pad and clipped the shims onto the pads, then coated the backside of each shim with disc brake grease. I then aligned the shim cover with the backside of the inner brake pad -- the one with the metal squeal indicator on the top of it -- and snapped it into place on the pad. I coated the shim cover with disc brake grease too, then slid the brake pads into the caliper bracket. I tightened the caliper bolts to between 16 and 23 foot-pounds, and the lug nuts to 80 foot-pounds.
