The Joy of Auto Repair

Suburban Front Disk Brake

Jack asked me to give him a hand doing the brakes on his car today after lunch. It was a simple job, just replacing the front brake pads on his GMC Suburban, something he has done many times before. He only needed help because his shoulder is still recovering from surgery and he didn't want to strain it, and he predicted that he would only need help with getting the wheels back on because they are kind of heavy. He has a hydraulic floor jack and a pneumatic air wrench, so none of the other work should cause him any undo strain. Famous last words.
    The left side was a piece of cake, well, except we had to use the old fashioned lug wrench to break the lug nuts loose because some knucklehead at the garage used an air wrench to put them on. So it was a good thing I was there to break them loose. Finish up the driver's side and go around to the passenger side and it's the same situation. The Harbor Freight air wrench hasn't got enough oomph to break the lug nuts loose, so I have to do it manually again. Okay, no problem, the lug wrench is a good one and I break all six loose and turn it over to Jack to spin them off. Four come off no problem, but the last too are still a little snug, so I have another go at them with the lug wrench. Boy are they tight. And they don't loosen up, every little bit of motion requires full force.
    Eventually one comes off. The interior of the nut is almost completely stripped. The stud doesn't look too bad, not great, but possibly usable. The last one unscrews for a while but then it stops. It goes around easily, but it is not unscrewing. There is maybe only one thread left holding it on, but it will not let go. We attack with hammer and tongs, but no luck. Finally resort to using a Dremel tool with an abrasive cut-off wheel to try and cut through one side of the lug nut. Get maybe 75% of the way through. Attack the cut with a chisel, only succeed in making the cut wider. Nut still won't come off. Finally Jack digs up an old brake adjustment tool and uses it to pry on the lug nut while I turn it with the wrench and it finally comes off.
   So Jack got the new pads installed and the wheels are back on, although the right front one only has four lug nuts holding it. Getting that fixed could be a problem. It might be possible to clean up the threads on the studs and and just put some new lug nuts on. It might be better to replace the studs, but that could be a real pain because, you guessed it, it's four wheel drive, and there's no telling how much of that front wheel assembly will have to come apart in order to be able to get the hub out so you can replace the studs.

Update from Jack: Took the ‘burban to Les Schwab’s.  They replaced the studs without removing the hub.  $50 and 45 minutes!

Update February 2017 fixed broken link.