Previous owner installed one brake pad each side upside down

samuelLJ

samuelLJ

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Joined
Feb 17, 2023
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Location
Central TX
Starting to disassemble my front axle in preparation for a lift/axle swap today, and ran into an issue. I haven’t touched the brakes on my LJ since I bought it a while back. Today while trying to take the calipers off, I could not get either side to come off. On both sides, they were loose and had some play, and I could use a pry bar to pull it an inch or so away from the rotor, but then it would get stuck. I watched a bunch of videos of TJ brake jobs, and realized that all of them were angling the top of their calipers backwards, then pulling straight up. I tried this on both sides and couldn’t get them off.

On further inspection, it looks like one of the previous owners installed the outer brake pads upside down. On the inner pads, the “C” section is installed downwards, but on the outers, the “C” is upwards. I don’t even know how they got these on with the alternating orientations, and I have no idea how to get them off.

Any suggestions?

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samuelLJ said:
Starting to disassemble my front axle in preparation for a lift/axle swap today, and ran into an issue. I haven’t touched the brakes on my LJ since I bought it a while back. Today while trying to take the calipers off, I could not get either side to come off. On both sides, they were loose and had some play, and I could use a pry bar to pull it an inch or so away from the rotor, but then it would get stuck. I watched a bunch of videos of TJ brake jobs, and realized that all of them were angling the top of their calipers backwards, then pulling straight up. I tried this on both sides and couldn’t get them off.

On further inspection, it looks like one of the previous owners installed the outer brake pads upside down. On the inner pads, the “C” section is installed downwards, but on the outers, the “C” is upwards. I don’t even know how they got these on with the alternating orientations, and I have no idea how to get them off.

Any suggestions?

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Stick a flat blade screwdriver into the outer remaining half of the spring and spring it open. Hopefully there is enough wear on the pad that you can then push it inward to get the pins out of the holes and remove the caliper that way.
 
Can you rotate the bottom of the outer pad towards the center of the hub and get it out of the caliper?
 
samuelLJ said:
Thanks for the feedback, I’ll try both and see what I can do.
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What it looks like he did was load the inner pad on the caliper and put the outer pad on the spindle and pushed the caliper on.
The outer pad has two locating tits that go into the caliper holes on the outside of the caliper. Push the pistons back then pry the outer pad away from the caliper and pull the caliper off with the inner pad leaving the outer pad on the spindle.
 
Artsifrtsi said:
You are also going to need to repair the slide section on the knuckles...

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Managed to get them off, thanks all for the tips.

Are those indented sections where the inner pad sits not supposed to be there? Is this literally wear from the pads?
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I have a donor HP Dana 30 I’m planning on swapping in (long story, got ut for cheap, had a lunchbox+gears, stock axle has shit welds from CA mount replacements). The donor HP Dana 30 out of an XJ has the same notches in the knuckle:
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Am I missing something?
 
Well, just answered my own question with some more research. Looks like this needs to be filled in weld material and ground down. I didn’t know that the indentation was something common that happens. The indentations looked so clean and even on both sides that I honestly thought that it was cast/machined into the knuckle.
 
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samuelLJ said:
Well, just answered my own question with some more research. Looks like this needs to be filled in weld material and ground down. I didn’t know that the indentation was something common that happens. The indentations looked so clean and even on both sides that I honestly thought that it was cast/machined into the knuckle.
Click to expand...

Nope, your research is correct… the pads need to slide to be effective.
 
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