Replacing Brake Rotors and Pads of Jeep Grand Cherokee 2001

Due to the twin-piston design of the front calipers of 1999-2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee, the pads are easy to contact the rotors unevenly and the uneven wear can cause  excessive rotor warp-age. The brand name of the caliper for 1999 - May 10, 2002 Jeep WJ is Teves (black color with open-sided bracket). For WJ after May 11, 2002, the caliper has been replaced by another type with brand name Akebono (silver color "fully closed" style).

My Jeep unfortunately falls into the time interval  1999 - May 10, 2002 and has  Teves calipers.  Recently I felt much pulsation when I hit the brake, which means that replacing the brake pads and rotors becomes necessary. One could choose to replace the calipers as well. But for me, it will cost too much for a 9 years old car. So I would like just replace the pads and rotors and hope I could use three more years.

I am not going to detail the steps on how to replace the rotors and pads since no special techniques are required for Jeep. All the steps are standard. However, I would like to record the tools and toque specifications in the following because it took me much time to find the correct tools to finish the service as the service manual did not give such specifications:

Tools and toque specifications

1. To remove the caliper mounting bolts, we need a Torx T45 bit;

2. To remove the bolts of the C bracket, we need a 18mm socket;

3. To service the brakes by oneself, it is highly necessary to have a heavy duty torque wrench which has a long handle; It will be very helpful to remove the 18 mm bolts of the C bracket;

4. Use 13mm socket to remove the lug nuts.

5. The torque of the mounting bolts is 15 N . M  (about 133 in lbs) 

    The torque of the bolts of the C Bracket is 17.5 N. M. (155 inch lbs)

    The recommended torque for lug nut is 115 ft lbs.

The following are some tips I learned in the project: 

a. The brake disc would get stuck with the wheel hub. One normally needs to hammer it off. To save some effort to hammer the disc, we could spray some WD-40. If this still can not work, we can use the C-clamp in this way: put a wrench with a hole in the handle on  one of the lug nut bolts, lock it with a lug nut, the wrench will cover the  center of the wheel hub. Then set one foot of the C-clamp on the wrench head (cover the wrench head with some wooden materials), the other foot on the brake disc. Rotating the handle of the C-clamp will produce some force sending the disc off the hub. If the force from the C-clamp does not take off the disc,  then hammer the back of the disc at the same time. Some-times knocking around would help unlock the rust.

b.  When we install the caliper, the disc might sway off the surface of the wheel hub. This could cause some trouble to put the caliper in place.  One can use the wrench and lug nut once more: overlap two wrenches with holes in one end  and let them sit in the lug bolts, lock them with a lug nut. In this way, the brake disc won't sway anymore.