Anyone have any words of advise? I am going to try and do these on my own. Although the local Mineike place say they would install the pads i bought if i wanted too.

I took a quick look this morning to see how much life i have left on them, and its grim. One weird thing is i did not see any safety pins like on the calibers up front.

 

Not much to it. Compress the pistons and replace the pads.
You should have 2 pins per caliper retaining the pads plus an anti rattle clip.
Get a hardware kit locally if you don't have anything keeping the pads in.
Ed

 

Any idea on the best way to compress the caliper?

 

you could youtube it. Calipers are all pretty similar and the guys on youtube have some good ideas every once in a while.

Here's my advice, make sure to take the e-brake off if you're ever taking rotors off.. I left mine on the first time I did the brakes and could not figure out why the rotor would not come off. DOH!