How to change brake pads on a Honda Insight

About a month ago, my brakes started making squealing noises every time I was slowing down. So naturally I assumed that this meant they needed replacing (more on that later) and picked up a pair from a dealership somewhat nearby along with some other parts I needed (valve cover gasket).
I have come to the conclusion, that if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself. So I took this “opportunity” to learn how to change brake pads by suckering the help of my neighbor Tim and his garage of tools (he had a brake pad spreader and hydrolic jack).
So, he did the first one, and I did the second one. Things went smoothly and here are the pictures from doing it all. He was kind enough to let me keep my soft little baby hands clean for the first half to take them
First, let’s look at the two pages from the service manual, pads/shims, and a picture of all the tools you need. I also got some pointers from insightcentral.net from other’s who have done this before.

So assuming you have everything, let’s take off the tire and look at what we have:

Ok, first thing you want to do is take off the hose retention screw (circled in red) and then remove the bottom caliper bolt fully using a socket wrench. Also make sure you loosen the top one so you can pivot the assembly(circled in red on the second picture), then lift the whole assembly up:

Now the next steps are to remove the old pads (real easy) and clean the area with your handy can of brake cleaner. Make sure you put a pan underneath to catch the runoff and watch your eyes…I hear this stuff hurts:

Ok, now that everything…and I mean everything (be thorough) is clean and grease free (don’t forget fingerprints), let’s move onto the next part. We need to compress the piston so there is enough clearance to get the darn thing back together. Now you can do this using a C clamp, but the proper tools is a brake pad spreader (as mentioned above). Now there are a few caveats about doing this, as this is arguably the only tricky part. You want to compress it slowly, and make sure you also don’t cause any air bubbles in the black seal around it. Burping the seal where you see any distortion is not a bad idea, just don’t scratch it while doing that. We found that compressing it just a little past the lip of the seal to be a good amount. And additionally we didn’t have any brake fluid overflowing…so bonus there! (you might note, we used a socket just to take up some of the slack):

Ok, now that everything’s prepped we need to get the brake pads themselves ready. You should have a pack of black grease stuff that came with the brakes. Basically we’re gonna put a thin frosting of that on everything. Basically we put it on the pad, then put the shim on, and then put more on the back. A little really goes a long way, so you probably won’t even come close to running out. Note that the inner pad has two shims, and the outer only has 1 shim. Make sure you get it between the shims on the inner pad.

Once that’s all done (you might need a little leverage to get the inner pads back on, so keep that screwdriver handy) we’re pretty much done. Rotate the caliper assembly down and tighten both the bolts to torque (22nm).

Assuming it all went well, your done. Pump the brakes a few times before moving your car to rebuild pressure, and your good to go.
Easy huh? Scary how much they charge for something so simple. Oh and thanks Tim. And thanks to Rob Hayward for giving these to me for free.