Hey all,
front end rebuild is happening one week from tomomrrow on my 2004 Dodge RAM 2500 5.9L Cummins. Thank you all so much for the comments you have provided for me throughout this journey of gathering knowledge for this project.

One last question for now:

I have been going back and forth on this now for a week. I am going to be putting EBC 7,000 series Green Stuff pads on the front and the 6,000 series green stuff pads on the rear on this truck. Somebody needs to set me straight here on this:

Do I run these pads with EBC Sport Rotors (slotted and dimpled) or the EBC Ulitmax Slotted Rotors...? I ask because the reviews are all over the board... I was set on the Sport rotors until I read a bunch of posts about wind noise on these and one guy flat out saying "this is the loudest rotor you will ever own"...

I do a fair amount of towing and long distance driving...

Can somebody set me straight here? What should I go with?
Thanks in advance!

 

I've had the sports fitted with P6000 greenstuff pads on my 03 Ram QC 1500.
You can definitely hear the pads on the surface of those slotted and dimpled rotors.
Weather or not it's annoying.....is personal preference.
I didn't mind them to be honest and they're a good rotor.
I'm about to replace them with just the slotted ones this time.
Several reasons why.
1) Didn't have the Sport ones in stock at the time.
2) slotted are cheaper and have slightly more weight to them helping heat dissipation.
3) I've read that the weight taken out of a rotor = less heat dissipation = worse braking.
Slotted and dimpled do just that. Take weight out. Plus, the dimples and slots thing, do the same job. Out gassing of the pads therefore helping with heat dissipation.
Modern pad materials do not suffer with this problem, as they used to.
I think a lot of this is advertising hokem and styling preference.
I personally noticed no difference using the butt o' meter, between my well set up stock brakes and ceramic pads and the slots/dimples and P6000 pads.
Anywho I went with slots only and kept that slightly extra bit of weight in the rota, to help in dissipating heat. That would particularly help you with your towing etc.
As long as you fit them correctly, have free sliding calipers to maintain pad float and with new anti-rattle clips etc, they will be fine.
Preparation, good fitting of components with taking your time and pride in the job, will see you good.
Al.

 

abarmby, great info!

So wow, I thought the Sports were supposed to dissipate heat faster. Anyhow, your comments...:

"As long as you fit them correctly, have free sliding calipers to maintain pad float and with new anti-rattle clips etc, they will be fine.
Preparation, good fitting of components with taking your time and pride in the job, will see you good."

...spark more questions that I actually have now... As of this point, I got the pads and rotors... Watching the vids online it looks like guys are just throwin the pads in the caliper brackets and calling em good...

Now, one vid I saw online, this guy had these wire looking things like you are talking about. It looks like they keep the pads off the rotor when the calipers aren't compressed... So, I have been actually searching the web and can't find anything like this. Do my pads need a special slot or something for these "clips" or "wires" (etc) to fit them up? I actually would really like to find those wires that this guy was using... Maybe it was a home remedy

Thanks for any reply you can give me here.

 

You will need to take the caliper brackets off to get the rotors off so it's more involved than popping out the calipers and pads. I suggest you clean these really well or your pads will get stuck from rust build-up beneath the stainless sliders. Mechanics tend to tell you that you have bad calipers but it is the rust that is frequently the problem.
Steve

 

Yeah... Its all good because I am going with new calipers too

So... I want to know at this point if there is anything else to this. I know there are the hardware clips that go on the ends of the caliper brackets... I am wondering if there was anything else to this setup? I really had an eye for these wire things this guy was using to keep the pad off the rotor when the caliper pistons are not engaged (if I could find the clip again I would post it...)

Also, I got my 7,000 series EBC pads in tonight from the Amazon seller I ordered them from and the seller hacked these. They looked very used and the box shows up to my front porch half opened and not even the right box. LOL. Needless to say I am requesting an immediate refund. I'm not about to drop $1G on a break overhaul and get this mess...


Also, the brake pads had these black looking plastic thingys on one side of the clip part of them. These were only on one side per pair. What are these? Shims?

I guess there is still a lot I have to figure out about this yet before I am comfortable. Every time I look I see something new about this break job

Help is much appreciated and thanks for the replies! Every reply helps this noob out. But, I am becoming a dangerous noob

 

Bud.... Not to be disrespectful or flame you but, you really don't appear to know what your doing?
With this level of inexperience your displaying.....and your doing a major overhaul of the braking system can I suggest you sit this one out?
Take the truck to a good mechanic. Pay for the job to be done right.
Sit and watch and learn for the next time. Then have a go.
Inexperience.... Brake job.... = WOW...... Look out.
Know what I mean
Al.

 

Yeah, see there's your problem. I have been overpaying for years to do these types of things and those days are over. I am going to learn this stuff if its the last thing I do...

Watching literally in the neighborhood of 100 videos online on this they all look about the same. It looks like a pretty mindless job to do this and I will be following what I have diligently and carefully watched.

I paid a mechanic over $500 to do a break job a year ago and it is the loudest, crappiest setup I have ever seen. I guess this is why I am taking pain and posting here. I want to learn literally everything.

This will be like when I dropped the coolant in my vehicle and flushed it about a year ago (using the 100 gallon distilled water method ) and nodoby thought it worthy to mention that you can only get 2 of your 7 gallons of coolant / water mix in before the thermostat has opened - on a diesel, it takes a half hour of reving around 2000 rpms to get that tstatt to open and take the rest of the coolant.... I learned on that project and I now can change out coolant on my vehicle without any air in the system and do it right - and there were guys just like you saying I should sit it out. Stubborness and a will to learn saw me through there and it will be the same for this project.

I will be doing just this on this job as well. I have 30 hours of research into this thing and it will be done by myself. I am not budging on that...

Anyhow, sorry for my history of life but many who are just like me who are sick of overpaying for this stuff will be reading this post and if that is you right now reading this, hang in there - it is an uphill battle but you will get it done with diligence and a mind of safety first always.

Thanks everybody for your posts and if there is anything I should know about this brake job other than pulling the calipers and rotors, putting in the break pads in the calipers and buttoning it all up, speak up now... That is not a hard job that needs to be done by a mechanic by any means... Yes, I do know about the break fluid bleeding and whatnot and so be safe there. Trust me, I am meticulous and will be just fine.

 

The pads with the extra things on the back go against the caliper pistons. I suggest you only take 1 side apart at a time so you have a reference point to get things back together. The only real trick to getting this done is that the calipers sort of get swung into position, you stick in one side first and rotate them in without squashing the stainless sliders. You will need a mid-sized power bar and a largish metric socket to get the caliper brackets off.

And lastly, pump the hell out of the brakes before you go for a test drive. You don't want to run into something before you get the pads back up against the rotors.

Steve

 

Use a C clamp and an old brake pad to compress the pistons back into the calipers ,so you can fit in the new pads.
You will never fit the new pads if you don't do this as its a tight fit with new pads even with the pistons fully pushed back.
Inspect the piston boots making sure there's no slits/cuts in them. Replace if necessary.
Also use break cleaner and a corse brush to wash and scrub away the protective oil coating on the rotas before fitting them.
Otherwise you will contaminate your new pads and it won't break for s**t.
Al.

 

I've been doing brake jobs since I was 14 years old, both drums and discs. If you mess the job up so bad that you vehicle doesnt stop properly then you shouldnt be turning a wrench. With that said it's a very easy job and with the will to learn you'll do just fine.

If you dont have a C-clamp to compess the caliper you can use a prybar between the old rotor and pad to compress the pistons just as easy. If your going to reuse the antirattle clips or install new ones clean the rust off the caliper slide real good. If you have to fight the pads putting them on something is wrong. I personally remove the antirattle clips on my vehicles and it makes brake jobs easier and reduces the chance of a pad getting stuck in the slide.

Good luck with the brake job, you can learn a lot on this site and online in general. I've saved a lotta money that way.