Today was the long awaited day of fitting the RPB front brake discs, yellowstuff pads, oem rear wheel studs, braided brake lines, and changing the brake fluid to EBC 5.1. We did it in the garage of the future father in law of one of my friends. That garage is a piece of automotive heaven, and the guy is a freakin' legend, when it comes to fixing cars. Most of the work we did ourselves, but the guy helped out a lot. It took 7 hours in total, which seems too much at first, but considering the amount of work done, and the fun we had, it was a day well worth it. And in the end, when I wanted to ask how much I needed to pay, the guy said "7 hours... that will be 7 0% beers, and a pack of cigarettes. Seriously, if not for his generocity, I think I would've payed anywhere in the range of 300€ for this. And now for the pictures.
Car up on jacks. Filthy.
Rear brake caliper disassambled. No rust anywhere, the underseal seems to have been done in a good enough way.
I had the pleasure of having a pair of lovely ladies working on my car. One being my girlfriend, and the other the fiance of my friend.
One of the old front brake discs. I don't know how old they were, but both were in horrendous condition. Grooves and vent holes rusted solid, rust all around, plus the left one did shake the front of the car, the hotter it got the worse. It probably had a hot spot problem, and the warp got worse, the hotter it got. I honestly think they were cheap, poorly brake discs, that I would've never put on a car at all. Just look at it! Horrible!
New RPB discs look a lot better, and being painted out of the factory, even between the 2 discs, I'm sure I will see no rust at all. My mate has a gauge to measure the play in the discs (or whatever it's called), both discs were below 0,05 mm.
Rear wheel hub cleaned, and long wheel studs removed. They came out easilly enough after some WD40 treatment.
The sliders in the rear caliper bracket were totally seized. They would not move at all, we had a hard time getting them out.
My friend's future father in law, being the absolute genius he is, quickly fabricated a tool to push the pistons back into the brake calipers. Nothing special, but hella effective, a threaded piece of iron and a long bolt. Flawless.
The sliding pins out of the rear calipers. Rust got them pretty bad, the shape was anything but circular, but we managed to get them out.
The amount of rust out of the slider pins' holes was shocking. I am sending my regards to the previous owners, who totally neglected the brakes. Cleaning up after other people again...
After everything was put togeather, it was time to drain the brake fluid. The father in law had this awesome homemade vacuum pump, which was custom built out of a hospital mucus and spit vacuum machine from the hospital he works at. Genius again, this saved us at least 2 hours today.
The old brake fluid, not pretty... I don't even want to think about when this was changed last.
Obligatory engine bay shot with the work still going on.
Everything fitted on the fronts, it's coming togeather nicely! The Injen CAI having a peek from the background.
It's finally done! RPB front discs, yellowstuff pads, sitting idle beind the freshly powder coated wheels, black center caps and red Muteki wheel nuts.
I must say, this was the biggest job done on the car so far, but I am very happy to have exposed and fixed the weakest point of the car, the brakes. I was fairly happy with them as is, but that's probably because I had no basis of comparison. Since I fried the old Brembo street pads for the first time, I always took it easy with the brakes, then again, until they overheated, they worked okay-ish. Now with about 5 miles done, I must say, the yellowstuff pads are already way better, than the old ones. I have some breaking in to do for the next 200+ miles, but it will be worth it. I am very very happy to know, that the most important thing, the brakes are in top condition on the car. We had a lot of trouble installing everything, due to old rusty bolts etc, but I couldn't be more happy. Pedal feel is a lot better, and the pads have a surprisingly strong initial bite, although still running on the brake-in layer. I'm kinda drunk so I hope all of this makes sense, I will keep you updated!