My Fellow Diesel Lovers,

I am going to be doing a rear brake job on my 2003 ram 3500 dually here in the next couple of weeks because my e-brake shoes are making a lot of noise, so I know they need to be replaced very soon. I read TotallyRads rear brake job thread and that was a huge help. Keeping in mind now that my truck has 201,000 miles on it, I have a couple of questions:

1. Should I replace both rear discs? I know I may have issues with one of them, so should I replace them both or just one?

2. Should I replace the rear wheel bearings because of the mileage? I don't have any noise or anything else unusual from them.

Of course I'm replacing al the seals, shoes, pads, and such, but I was just wondering if there is anything else I should do while I'm in there as I only want to have to do this once. Thanks for help!

 

1) if I was going to the effort of taking it all apart, and needed one rotor anyway, I would go ahead and replace both rotors for the best outcome.

2) I haven't seen a lot of failures of rear wheel bearings and would be inclined to reuse them pending an inspection for visible problems. I would definitely replace both hub seals, as they are a common trouble spot and will contaminate your new brakes if they start leaking. As I reinstall the hubs, I will pour a bit of gear oil into each hub so lubrication will be immediate.


Also, the biggest problem I have seen with these rear brakes is the caliper slide pins and bushings seizing and causing uneven pad wear. For sure I would remove the pins and rubber bushings, sand the rust from their bores down to clean shiny metal, and install new pins and bushings.

 

I'll clean and inspect the bearings when I remove them, if they are in good shape, I'll reuse them.

Thanks for the input!

 

MeanDoggy, I put a DIY in the wiki for the rear brakes on my 04.5 dually. The article might be of some help if you've never done this before.

 

Totallyrad, I studied that thread you posted intently, and I appreciate you very much for posting that thread with such detail. I was very unsure about doing this task until I saw your post, and you really put my mind at ease and gave me the confidence to be able to do this job. Again, thank you for such a great post.

 

Thank you MD, it was fun believe it or not. I omitted one piece of info in that thread that I didn't have on hand when I posted it. The torque setting on the axle nut is 22 ft lbs, set while turning the hub. Then you back the nut off 30 degrees then locate the closest slot in the nut to install the key. I believe the play in the bearing is only 0.001. Let me know how it goes.

 

Well, I started the brake job this morning about 9 am, it is now 5 pm and I just got done with the front brakes! Let me explain.....

So here I am all ready to rip apart the rear brakes and get them all squared away, or so I thought. Thinking ahead some, I thought I should go ahead and check the front brakes to see if they are okay, well guess what? Oh heck no! They are more screwed up than the back ones! To make a long story short, I replaced the front right side rotor, the front right side wheel bearing assembly ($ ouch!), and new pads on both sides! And I wish somebody would have written somewhere when you remove the front rotors, you have to remove the wheel hub extensions first, then the rotors just fall right off! Lesson learned, and I haven't even touched the back brakes yet.

So, now I'm sitting here at the kitchen table drinking a beer, now I know why you guys always add the steps for beers in your how to's, and...now where was I? Oh yeah, sitting here wondering if I should go get started on the rear brakes, beer sure is good, but my truck is up on jack stands in the garage, but I'm also hungry, and I have all the parts for the rear brake job, need to get another beer, decisions decisions.....

 

Well, after careful consideration (and another beer), I decided to wait until tomorrow to do the rear brakes. I'm whooped and ready for some supper and a nap.

 

Sorry to hear you're having such a time of it. I took pictures to write up the front brakes months ago but that project got moved to the back burner.

 

Yesterday evening I thought I was gonna do the rear brakes and shoes on my truck today, well, it's Sunday afternoon at 1 pm and I have come to the painful conclusion that I'm not going to get to them today. Yesterdays adventure with the front brakes just took it out of me and I am too pooped to pop. So, I'll wait for another weekend to do them, I have 5 days off next weekend (I took Thursday and Friday off in conjunction with the 3 day Labor Day weekend), so I might do it then. So, I guess I'll drink some beer today since I didn't add enough of those steps into the job I did yesterday and watch some football, sounds like a plan to me.

 

I went back to the top to reacquaint myself with your original goals. Besides the shoes for the e-brake, do you have blue thread locker, anti-seize, 2 inner seals and 2 axle seals? You better locate the rear calipers as well at a parts store. I had only seen the snow a hand full of times with mine and the bleeders broke off when I tried to open them. I got mine from O'Reilly Auto Parts with a lifetime warranty. I just swapped one a couple weeks ago because it was not releasing. No issues getting the replacement. If you get the bleeders loose, pull them out and coat them with anti-seize. If you have to buy new, do the same before you install them.

 

I have all of the parts and chemicals you have listed, I made sure I had those before I got started. I also just checked with my local O'Reilly, I use them for just about all my parts, and they have both rear calipers (between $50 and $130 depending on how much I want to spend) on the shelf should I need them. Probably gonna get into this next Thursday or Friday during my long weekend.

 

Awesome! In the write up I think I used red thread locker. That is probably way overkill so I switched to blue this time.