How to Replace the Brakes on an Acura 2003 RSX

The brakes on your 2003 Acura RSX are disc brakes. Acura decided to use caliper-and-disc style brakes for all four wheels. This means that all four brakes are changed essentially the same way. The rear brakes have an emergency-brake cable, but thats the only difference. Youll need to replace your brakes when the pad material is around one-eighth of an inch or less. Replacement brakes can be purchased from most auto-parts stores.

Instructions

1

Jack up the front and rear of your RSX using a floor jack. Start with the front. Make sure you are jacking on the factory jack points located behind the radiator and behind the trunk. Place a jack stand under each of the front and rear pinch-weld supports under the vehicle and lower the RSX onto the stands.

2

Unbolt the lug nuts on the wheels using an impact wrench. Then, pull the wheels off of the wheel-hub assemblies.

3

Wrap the C-clamp around the brake caliper so that the screw end of the clamp sits flush against the outboard brake pad. Then, tighten the clamp to compress the caliper piston.

4

Remove the clamp when you can no longer tighten it, and unbolt the upper and lower caliper-mounting bolts and pull the caliper off the brake rotor.

5

Have an assistant hold the brake-caliper assembly. Do not let it hang by the rubber brake hose.

6

Unscrew the two screws in the center of the brake rotor using a screwdriver. Most vehicles dont use mounting screws on their brake rotors. Honda, which makes Acura vehicles, does. It will be impossible to remove the rotor if you dont remove these screws.

7

Slide the rotor off and slide the new rotor on. Installation is the reverse of removal.

8

Remove the old brake pads and insert the new pads into the caliper assembly.

9

Mount the brake caliper and tighten the caliper-mounting bolts to 53 ft-lbs. with a torque wrench. The rest of the installation is the reverse of removal.

10

Repeat steps 2 through 9 for the rest of the brakes. When replacing the rear brakes, the only change in procedure is that you will need to remove the emergency-brake spring from the caliper with a pair of pliers before removing the caliper-mounting bolts.

Related Posts by Categories