How to: Rear brakes on a 00-06 Tahoe, Yukon, or Suburban

I recently replaced my rear brake pads and rotors and decided to do a little write up about the process. Some of the rear disc brakes have single piston calipers, and some have the dual piston calipers. Mine has the dual piston calipers, so this should apply to any GMT800 truck or SUV with rear disc brakes with dual caliper pistons. The rear discs are actually a drum/disc combo with a "hat" shaped rotor. Its basically a rotor with a drum built into it. The drum part is completely separate brake shoes used strictly for the parking brake. I did not change the parking brake shoes because I had them replaced at the dealer about 2 years ago before my extended warranty ran out. I did however clean them pretty good with some spray on brake cleaner.
I replaced my pads with some Wagner Thermoquiet Ceramic pads. I also installed the same pads on the front a few months ago.

And for the rotors, I ordered some Powerstop drilled and slotted rotors. I installed these same rotors on the front brakes and I am very satisfied with them.


First off, you want to jack up the rear of the vehicle and securely support it with sufficient rated jack stands. Do not support the vehicle with a jack or other stuf like bricks, cinder blocks, lanscape bricks or other crap you have lying around. Dont risk killing yourself, just buy some jackstands.
Remove the rear wheels and set them aside.
Now you have to remove the two caliper mounting bolts from the caliper slide pins with a 13mm socket (some vehicles may have differents ized bolts). The slide pins may want to spin around on you, hold them still with a 16mm wrench.
Now lift the caliper off of the caliper braket and rotor so you can remove the old pads and compress the pistons back into the caliper. I used a 5 inch "C" clamp and one of the old brake pads to compress the pistons back into the caliper. Some people simply choose to turn the bleeder screw to relieve the pressure so the piston can retract. I don't like to do that because then you have to bleed the brakes afterwards.

Now set the caliper aside. You can use a bungee cord to support it up out of the way. Do not just let it hang from the brake hose!
Now you need to remove the caliper braket, which is held on with two 18mm bolts, which just happened to be tight as a muthafWONker. :fume: I had to use a 1/2 inch drive 24 inch breaker bar to break them loose, then removed them with a ratchet.


Now once you have the caliper braket off you can remove the rotor. Luckily mine came right off by just grabbing it and wiggling it side to side as I pulled it straight off of the wheels studs.


Now look at the parking brake shoes and clean them if needed or replace them if needed. (you are on your own if you need to replace those)

Now take your caliper braket and pop those slide pins out and clean them off and regrease them with some caliper slide grease. Just peel back the little rubber boot and the pin will slide right out.




Now get those pins popped back in and the rubber boots popped back on and wipe off any excess grease.
Now start putting stuff back together. Slide your new rotor onto the wheel studs. Then bolt your caliper bracket back on, make sure you get those two 18mm bolts really tight. Now get your new pads situated in the caliper and slide it over the rotor into position to be bolted up to the caliper bracket. If it doesnt fit on, you may have to compress the piston a bit more like I had to do.

Now get it all lined up and bolt the caliper back in place. Now it should look like this.

Now get your wheels back on and get the truck off the jack standsand you are good to go. :thumbs:

Here is some pics of my old pads next to the new ones. They were starting to get pretty thin.

Great write-up, thanks!

Maybe add how to adjust the parking brake (I know you have to take the rear rotor to do so). Any maybe add which rear brake pad goes on the inside verse the outside (I know the inside and outside pads are different).

I know chiltons says to do so, and everyone else seems to, but I dont need to c-clamp my pistons to pull my caliper...

Thanks for the write-up Scottyboy! I see you've had the pads and rotors on for about 6 months now. How do you like the Thermo Quiets? Also, if you don't mind, how much was the set up for the rear brakes? Looking to change out my rears soon.

---------- Post added at 09:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:58 AM ----------

One thing you didn't mention but I'm sure you did...be sure to clean the new rotors well before installation to remove the oil and residue from the new rotors. This can be done with brake parts cleaner or a bucket of Dawn dish soap...or both if you're real ****.

Yes, most rotors have an oily residue on them to prevent rust and must be cleaned before installing. However, my drilled and slotted rotors are Zinc coated and had no oily residue. I did give them one quick spray with the brake parts cleaner tho.
And I love the Thermoquiet Ceramics. Great stopping power, and damn near zero brake dust!! Lately I have been going a month or more between washings, and the wheels are still damn near clean.

No brake dust is huge! They always advertise low dust but it never works out for me. Glad to hear those are the real deal. I'll be upgrading to those shortly.

Great write up!

Good job just did mine an those bracket bolts are a PITA . I don't recalling the OP mentioning anything about adding thread lock but it's recommend to put some on the bracket bolts.

Great write up as always Scotty! I would like to make one suggestion- don't use the lower links to support the vehicle. They are not meant to hold the weight of the truck. On my tahoe the previous owner tried to jack it up by the lower link and bent it.