Brake pad thickness
 

How thick would the front brake pads be when they're ready to replace? I'm noticing some front brake squeal a lot of times when slowing from 55 MPH, but the pads have around 1/8" of material left and the rotors are not grooved badly. The truck has about 46,000 miles, & I bought it a couple months ago.

if the pads have 1/8" left then you would prob need to start seeing about getting them replaced

How difficult is it to remove the calipers to inspect the pads?

you should be able to see the edge of the pad from the top of the caliper, the pad needs to be at least as thick as the backing plate. i dont know if you can see them with the tire on but you should not have to remove the caliper to view the pads.

change them its cheap and easy

It is simple, 2 bolts to remove the caliper slides and thats it.

I took the tires off last night to get a good look at the pads. There is at least 1/4"-3/8" of material left on the pads. The rotors are still in great shape too. I didn't get a chance to pull the rear drums off, but I was pretty sure the squeal was coming from the front brakes...

I just replaced my pads that had at least 1/4" of material left on them. They were squeaking like crazy and even though they had a lot of life left they were annoying me. Put the new pads on and the squeak was gone.

I just ran an errand at lunch and noticed the brakes weren't squeaking at all-I don't believe they squeaked on the way to work this morning either. The lug nuts had been put on by a gorilla (impact wouldn't bust them loose), and I tightened them to 90 lb/ft with my torque wrench. Maybe the lug nuts were so tight, they were putting too much pressure on the rotors, etc causing the noise? I'll continue to monitor and see if it comes back.

It squealed some more on the way home-but not as much as before. Everything checked out visually, so I'm not going to worry about it. My wife's Accord has had squeaky brakes for nearly 100k miles and has been to Honda & other shops multiple times in attempt to cure it-we finally gave up on it!

I'd give the centric posi quiets a try, they are a great pad made for trucks and SUV's

http://www.modbargains.com/product.a...Ford_Ranger_DC

http://www.modbargains.com/zoom_img/...1203423326.jpg

dont get ceramic pads...they are pos. me and my dad had them on his f150 and after 5000 miles they were shaking like crazy. we tried everything turning rotors etc. and we put the new pads on and boom it was gone

That may or may not have anything to do with it being a ceramic pad, your comment is like me saying, I drove one ford ranger and it had a terrible shake in the steering wheel, dont buy a ranger