Jack stands, wheels off, pulled rotors.
On the left side, it turned out that the pads weren't quite down to the backing plate yet, but that end of the pad it had a ragged edge and looked like it wouldn't last another two days on my commute; my instinct had been correct. The rotors--ordinarily I don't turn them, but these are cheap Chinese rotors and I figured I didn't want to have to pull all this apart again during winter, so I took them off and headed to O'Reilly's to get them turned.
For the first time since that auto parts store has been there--since before, when it was Murray's--today marked the first time I ever got a set of rotors turned there, the first time I didn't go in and get told, "Sorry, but the brake lathe is down...."
One side was marginal, the other was okay. I told him to turn the okay one and that I'd be back, because I got them from Lang's down the street and their prices are better. (Probably for exactly the same manufacturer to boot.) Lang's had them, $12 cheaper, so I bought that. By the time I got back to O'Reilly's the good one was almost done; once I'd gotten pads and settled up I went across the street to Advance, where I had a $5 off coupon against a $10 purchase. There I bought a windshield wiper for the driver's side (which is starting to shudder) and a can of brake cleaner.
BK for food, home, eat, go to PO for stamps, come home...where is the spare Jeep key? FFFFFUUU-- go back to PO looking for it, fail to find it, argh etc... I had just used it to open the Jeep, so I had it before going to the PO; no idea where it went because it wasn't anywhere around the PO, nor is it in the Jeep, Mrs. Fungus' car, or the driveway. Argh etc.
Dove back into the truck. Reassembly was fairly painless. Biggest problem was one of the slide pins on the passenger side was stiff; I pulled it, wire wheeled it, gave it a light coat of grease, and put 'er back in. Finished reassembly.
Went around the block, not faster than 25 MPH; the new brakes are just beginning to get good bite but still feel a bit spongy. That ought to go away in a couple dozen miles or so and I'm not worried about it; this is not exactly the first time I've done brakes. (And I think it's the fourth brake job I've done on this truck since I got it. Twice front, twice rear, and one of those times I had to replace the rear brake cylinders. Yeah.)
Best part: limited lifetime warranty on the pads. Like Og, I've kept the old ones, so the next time I need to do this I just go into O'Reilly's with these in a box and say, "More, please!"
Shops charge $100 per axle for this kind of work. I got it done for $60, and the next time I need to change the pads those will be free. Can't beat that.
