I spent a few nights last week replacing the rotors and pads on my 99 5.4 2wd eb expy. I read up on the procedure and having done this numerous on my earlier cars felt up to the task. Ordered the brembo rotors from Tire Rack. The rotors come with new studs for the wheels and were very nice. I picked up a set of raybestos quiet stop ceramics for the pads after reading about them here. At the last minute (after I started) I decided to go ahead and pick up a set of front bearings as well. O'reilly had federal mogul, lastly picked up some mobil 1 bearing grease as well. I have 118k on mine so I figured what the heck.

The routines listed for the F150's are pretty accurate. I hit a few stopping points. Most "how-to" articles refer to the 4wd F150 which has the rotor seperate from the "hub". The expy does not. You will need to remove the dust cap, remove the cotter pin, loosen the bolt and the rotor will come right off. No big deal, just different than what the articles describe.

The one deal killer for me was the need for a T45 torx driver to remove the caliper to swap out the actual pads. The articles refer to a 18 mm socket to remove the assembly and a 13mm socket to remove the caliper. The 18mm is correct, but where the F150 has the 13 mm the 99 expy has a T45 torx head bolt. I realized I really needed it too late to make a run as I live 45 minutes from any auto related store.

Once I had the torx bit I rolled on through the procedure and completed what should have been a few hour job in two evenings. Stops straight and quietly. I will report later on brake dust and if she squeals or not, but so far so good.

All in all, no big whoop, just make sure you have that darn torx bit before you start. I had not read anything about it before I dug in.

 

Pat,

Let me know how you like the Brembo rotor's. I keep warping my OEM's. I also went all the way around with "Quiet Stop's". Very happy with lees dust and fading. I was amazed to find the factory wheel bearing cages to be plastic.

Keith

 

I thought the same thing about the bearing cases on the fronts, but there was no "real" wear so I guess they work alright.

so far so good on the brembos, $70 each at tire rack and they were at my door in a couple of days.