PhilMeUp

"BA Premium" refers to the front calipers - they were an option on BA Falcons (XR8s and XR6 Turbos, I think). They are quite hard to find secondhand. But, you can buy the actual calipers brand new easily enough from a national company called MTQ Engine Services - they sell Bosch and PBR (who make the calipers) stuff. The problem is getting the brackets that mount the calipers to the car. So, duplicating brackets for either BA Premium or Brembo calipers would be very, very useful.

Are you able to duplicate brackets? Getting BA Premium calipers brand new is easy enough (ie about $400 a pair) but that's without the brackets. I've got four piston rear Brembo calipers on my taxi, but it's a wagon - same bracket as the ute (leaf spring back end) but is different to the sedan bracket.

Ahem. Check the clip. Something so stupidly simple that you'll curse yourself for having to put up with the squeaking noises at all. http://www.fordxr6tu...ndbrake-squeak/

Got some squeaking noises coming from your back brakes? There is a clip that holds the handbrake shoes against the backing plate. If that clip isn't holding the shoes against the backing plate then the resulting vibration can causes squeaking sounds. VERY easy to sort out. Remove wheel, caliper, disc, handbrake shoes, etc. Either replace the clip with a new one or just bend it back into place. Reassemble. I had rear end squeaking noises a while ago. Took it to a taxi mechanic and he had it diagnosed before we even got out of the carpark. The car was up on the hoist and the noise stopped a few minutes later. Photo of the clip:

Thanks, you’re welcome. A few years ago, when I first saw someone post a bunch of photos of them working on a car or bike, I thought that they had only dragged out the job and taken more time. These days, I realise that although it does take some time to take photos, it puts something out there that other people can look at in the future. I’m not an expert mechanic, but stuff like this is very simple to do, especially once there’s a photo guide to show how it’s done. http://www.ebay.com/itm/280723127789?item=280723127789 That link works now, but will expire in the future. Anyone looking for a torque wrench should search for TECH3FR250 (which can also handle the torque requirement for front bearing hubs) or TECH2FR100 (for general use). Postage for my TECH3FR250 came to $US51. Nah, the ceramic pads just put out less dust, but will have less bite. For the six piston front calipers, the pads part number is HB616Z.607. For the rear pads, the part number is B194Z.665. You can buy them overseas easily enough, but they are also available in Australia, including Race Brakes Sydney. I bought mine from Jegs.com - the front pads were $US179.99 and the rear ones $US111.99. Postage was a killer (they are very heavy), but my main reason for buying them overseas was that I wanted to get a bunch of speed bleeders and couldn’t find them in Australia. I probably didn’t save any money on the pads, but the speed bleeders were something that I wanted very, very, very badly. And, sure enough, bleeding brakes and flushing fluid is now an extremely easy job that I can do on my own in the front yard at night. This week I also ordered a GiroDisc brake pad spreader, for $US225 plus $US65 post (total of $US290). That’s a heap of money for something I’ll probably only use a couple of times a year, but I can’t see any any other way of easily pushing the pistons back in on the Brembo calipers. And, when I do work on those calipers, I need to be able to do it fast. http://www.girodisc.com/Caliper-piston-spreader_p_5970.html

Part 2 - Rear Brakes 19th September, 2011 Two weeks after replacing the front control arm bushes and fitting the front Brembo brakes, it was finally time to fit the rear setup. It took some stuffing around, but I finally managed to get the correct Goodridge braided rear brake lines. The rear calipers in the box, ready to be fitted. The rubber brake lines were replaced with Goodridge braided lines. To get to the brake line mounting brackets, the rear shock absorbers had to be unbolted. This also meant that I could get a photo of the part number so that I know what to order if I use the same stuff when these ones wear out. The rear axle and handbrake, after the standard caliper and disc rotor have been removed. Removing one of the standard rear brake lines. Drill out a rivet and the bracket comes away from the rest of the car. The new bracket then goes into place and is rivetted to the car. The passenger side rear brake line in place. The driver side rear brake line in place. A closeup photo of one of the rear brake line mounting brackets. The rear lines for a wagon or ute are different to the sedan ones. If anyone is planning on putting braided rear lines on a wagon or ute, you need to get the brake lines with these brackets on them. Another photo of one of the rear brake line mounting brackets. The circlips for the rear lines weren't in the packet, so a small clamp was used on the other side of the bracket to hold the brake line in place until I can get some suitable circlips. One of the rear disc rotors in place. You can also see how I had used a wire brush on a cordless drill to make sure that the outer edge was clear of rust. This was to ensure no interference between the disc rotor and wheel. All the parts are in place and it's time to bleed the brake line. The nearly completed setup on the passenger side. The plastic brake line guide (the red plastic thing) wasn't suitable, so a rubber protective shield was put together and the whole lot secured to the leaf spring. Part of doing this was to prevent the brake line from flopping around and getting damaged. An overview photo of the completed brake line and mounting bracket setup. I didn't use any of the Brembo pads that came with the calipers. These are known for producing a lot of brake dust, so I had researched and bought other pads earlier (ie the Hawk Performance ceramic pads). You can see the copper grease on the outer edges - where the pad sits in the caliper - to prevent brake noise. For my pads, I used some stuff called "Bendix Ceramic High Performance Synthetic Lubricant" on all the pads instead. The finished job on the passenger side. The car now has a complete set of new front control arm bushes, along with a 6 piston front and 4 piston rear brake setup.

Part 1 - Front Brakes 6th September, 2011 The front setup was fitted to the car on the same night that the control arm bushes were all replaced. DBA list the DBA5000 rotors on their web site for around $800 each, so when I found a pair secondhand for a small fraction of that I bought them as soon as I could. These are a two piece rotor, using an aircraft aluminium centre. The two piece design makes them lighter than one-piece units, and the aluminium runs a lot cooler, resulting in much less heat on the wheel bearing hubs. For brake pads, I went with Hawk Performance ceramic pads that I bought via mail order from the US. I spent many hours looking through web forums trying to work out which pads would put out the least amount of dust, and the Hawk ceramic pads were frequently recommended for this. Next time I'll buy them locally, but I also wanted some other things from a particular US retailer so bought these to make up the order. They look small in the photo but these are massive calipers, especially the front ones. They are also extremely heavy. I'll be using braided lines instead of the standard Brembo rubber ones. I got lucky with buying these (via eBay) as the person that sold them to me originally bought them for his ute (ie leaf spring back end, same as my wagon). This meant that the brackets on the rear ones were the correct ones for my wagon, and everything bolted on just how it should. Starting the job, here is most of the front brake on one side. The caliper is still on the car (keeping the brake fluid contained, for now). A quick check to see one of the front disc rotors in place. Then it's on to fitting the braided brake line. The Goodridge braided brake line has now been fitted and the caliper bolted on. Everything fitted correctly the first time. This photo shows the routing of the braided brake line, before the caliper was bolted on. Fitting the brake lines was easy enough - undo the nut the top of the line, pull a clip out and do the same in reverse with the new brake line. The finished setup on the passenger side. The matching finished setup on the driver's side. Ready to put the wheels back on. There is a rear caliper bolted on in this photo, but that was just to check the bracket and wheel clearance. Front and back ends were both checked to ensure that the wheels would clear each caliper. Photos like this don't really show the clearance between the wheel spokes and caliper, but I had a go Another photo of the finished setup. This photo sort-of shows the clearance between wheel spoke and caliper. By now there were new calipers, new pads new brake lines and secondhand disc rotors. The finished setup on the driver's side. The finished job, ready to leave the workshop. It looks worlds better than a few hours earlier. Now it was time to go for a drive and wear the pads in. It took a day or two for the pads to wear into shape and match the disc rotors. The original plan was to fit the rear Brembo setup on the same night, but this couldn't be done because the brake line supplier had sent the wrong rear lines (despite me making it very clear what lines I required).

Photo Essay - Replacing Front Control Arm Bushes Helps stop brake shudder This was actually done in September last year (2011). I had a very good Brembo brake system lined up to go on the car, but was holding back until I understood enough about everything else that is involved in brakes (eg suspension bushes). People are regularly complaining on Falcon forums about how they've recently had their front discs machined but still get brake shudder a short while later. For a lot of these cases, the problem will be worn control arm bushes. If these bushes are worn, then the control arms move around too much and brake shudder can result. I didn't want to fit the exotic Brembo setup and then have brake shudder problems straight away. I especially didn't want to ruin some very valuable disc rotors. I wanted the brakes to work properly and not spend weeks or months getting upset about stupid dramas that could have been prevented with some better planning and maintenance. After a bunch of research, I lined up new bushes, a spare set of control arms and a mechanic who knew heaps about doing this particular job. Ripper. Getting a spare set of control arms (ie one upper and one lower for each side, for a total of four arms) meant that I could get the new bushes fitted by a place that had a suitable hydraulic press. This was useful, as the workshop that did this didn't have that resource, and having the replacement arms ready to go made the task a lot simpler. Pulling the thing apart. The brake caliper and disc have been removed (caliper sitting on top of the control arm for now). This is the infamous villain - a lower control arm. I picked up a spare set of arms from a workshop, bought new bushes from Ford and had them fitted at a suspension workshop. This meant that replacing the bushes became a job of just replacing the control arms, instead of pulling them out, stuffing around for a couple of hours fitting new bushes and then putting the whole lot back together. This is the view of the top of an upper control arm. This is the view of the bottom of an upper control arm. The bit on the left is a ball joint, which is actually a rather amusing name when you stop and think about it. This is the guilty item. If you've got ongoing brake shudder problems then chances are that this bush is stuffed. This is the front bush on the lower control arm. The standard Ford part is filled with liquid to help give a more comfortable ride. If you are happy to sacrifice comfort then you can pursue other options from Super Pro and Nolathane. Another angle of the front lower control arm bush. This photo shows how the whole lot works. The upper and lower control arms move up and down, which is controlled by the shock absorber and spring. In this photo the bolts for the upper control arm have been sprayed with CRC to assist with removal. You can see the big front bush on the right side of the photo. You'll hopefully now understand that when you brake, that bush is taking on the weight of the car. The upper control arm, ready for removal. These are the brackets that the upper control arm bolts to. When you have a camber kit fitted to your Falcon, this is where it goes. A camber kit goes between these mounts and the car body. You can also see where the top of the front shock absorber goes. Carport floor, in the midst of battle. Here we see the replacement arm being fitted. You can see the two bushes that go between the arm and the car (ie the front bush and the rear bush). The bit in the foreground with the threads is the lower ball joint and just behind that is the bush that the shock absorber attaches to. You can also see where white grease is used on the bushes and bolts. Another angle of the lower control arm in place. You can see the front and rear bushes in the background. In the foreground is the lower ball joint, and you can see where the shock absorber mounts to (with the white grease). This is the lower control arm being fitted on the passenger side. Same setup as the previous photos (ie driver's side). Note the hammer on the ground, which is useful if you're the mechanic and need to tell the idiot owner to piss off with the camera. Nice closeup shot on the front bush on the lower control arm. When you jump on the brakes that baby gets to do a heap of work. Re-attaching the front shock absorber to the lower control arm. Getting it all back together again. Lower control arm is back in place and shock absorber has been re-attached. Same as the previous photo, but on the passenger side of the car. Everything has been tightened up to the required specifications with a torque wrench. To make sure that everything is done up properly, use a jack and some blocks of wood to put enough pressure on the control arm and shock absorber to duplicate the load that it carries when it's on the ground. Re-fit the brake rotor and caliper, put the wheel back on, do the wheel nuts up to the correct torque (125Nm) and you're ready to go. I actually bought a Snap-On torque wrench off eBay in America mainly for this task, as I had previously been doing the wheel nuts up way too tight. On this night, Brembo front brakes were also fitted, which is another story… Costs: this is definitely not a cheap exercise, which also explains why so few Falcon owners do it. Being a taxi, I get a special trade price on parts, but the bushes still cost a bundle. Recommended retail price for the bushes and ball joints is around $800. I paid $110 at Pedders Suspension in Osborne Park to get the bushes fitted to the spare control arms that I bought. Then there's the labour cost. Ouch. If you have a BA or BF Falcon and are having troubles with brake shudder then this is what you're going to have to look into. Look around Ford forums and you'll regularly come across feedback from people that can't understand why their newly machined discs are warped after only a few thousand kilometres. It's not just the brakes that cause brake shudder; there are other factors such as wheel bearing hubs and these suspension bushes. The mechanic confirmed that the front bushes were completely stuffed. The car had brake shudder for a while, and I had tried different calipers and disc rotors. I'd pretty much figured out that machining discs wasn't going to solve the problem, so held back on fitting the Brembo stuff until I had all this stuff figured out. The guy that did this job is a qualified mechanic, and did it in his workshop. This wasn't a freebie and it didn't involve a carton of beer. This guy is a professional mechanic and is priced accordingly. If you're in Perth and want the same job done on your BA or BF Falcon then send me a private message (with your phone number) and I'll pass it on to him straight away.

Well, look at that. Was sure that I posted it on here originally. Did searches for Wurth, Balcatta and the part number (071553200) and all came up blank, so posted it. Bugger.

Other threads that you might want to read before/after reading this one: http://www.fordxr6tu...tandard-brakes/ http://www.fordxr6tu...e-fluid-tester/ http://www.fordxr6tu...age__p__1120730 http://www.fordxr6tu...age__p__1116643 I fitted a Brembo brake system to my taxi in September last year (ie 2011). Why? Because the standard brake setup overheats quite easily when worked hard (eg frequent downhill braking) and fades. I did a bunch of homework on braking options for Falcons and found that a Brembo setup was pretty much the premier option but too expensive to justify. When some brand new calipers turned up on eBay a few weeks later at a price too good to ignore, I ended up starting along a path from being under-braked to overkill. The braking system on this taxi now comprises of: - 6 piston front calipers - 4 piston rear calipers - DBA5000 355mm x 32mm front disc rotors - FPV 330mm x 32mm rear disc rotors - Goodridge braided brake lines - Hawk Performance ceramic brake pads - PBR Super Dot 4 brake fluid - Speed bleeders (ie brake bleed nipples with a small one-way valve inside, that means that fluid can come out, but no air goes back in. This makes it much easier to bleed or flush brake fluid.) It would be a fairly safe assumption that this car now has the best brakes of any taxi in Australia. Brake fluid is one of the most over-looked things in a car or motorbike. People do all sorts of things to improve the performance or output of the engine, suspension, gearbox, exhaust and other things. They might even put bigger brakes on their car (like I have). But, very few people realise that over time, brake fluid absorbs water moisture. Eventually, the brakes become weaker because of this, and during hard braking (when there is a large heat build-up), the brakes can fade to a dangerous level. Water boils when it's hot, so that is one of the reasons why we use brake fluid (ie higher boiling point). Water boils into steam when it gets hot enough. If that happens and you're pushing hard on the brake pedal, the force gets absorbed by the compressing steam instead of being transferred to the brake calipers. You then have brake fade and possibly a crash. So, these days I flush the brake fluid in my taxi very regularly to ensure that I have the best braking performance possible. I've flushed the fluid plenty of times on the previous standard brakes, but this was the first time I had done so with the Brembo setup. The inside of the brake fluid reservoir cap - plenty of crap there. I pulled the rubber out and cleaned the whole lot with CRC Brake Cleaner. My Wurth Brake Fluid Tester was showing that my brake fluid didn't contain an alarming level of moisture, but enough to justify flushing the fluid. I was also curious how much difference in brake pedal pressure there would be between this and fresh fluid. The tester has five lights - one green, two orange and two red. Here I've got the one green and two orange, so it's not time to panic yet (ie two red lights) but is the perfect time to flush the fluid. Whenever I get the wheels off the car I always take advantage of being able to clean them properly. It's the one time that I have equal access to the entire rim, instead of having to reach down into corners when the wheels are on the car. I use BT18 cleaner in a weed sprayer bottle and a brush, both of which can be bought from any Bunnings or hardware shop. Spray the CT18, rub the brush everywhere and rinse it off with a hose. This photo also shows that my wheel cleaning skills (ie bloody fussy) are significantly better than my gardening skills (which are completely non-existent). Here's the first one to flush - the passenger side rear caliper. You can see how the Brembo calipers have got two bleed nipples on each caliper - an inner and an outer one. You flush the inner ones first. Thanks to the speed bleeders that I have, flushing brake fluid is a very simple one-person job. After trying lots of places in Australia without success, I resorted to getting these sent via mail order from the US last year, and after working with brakes with these things in place I'll have them on every car that I own for the rest of my life. It just makes it so easy to flush fluid on your own (in any environment, including a front yard) and ensures that no air can get back into the system. For each nipple I put the hose on, loosened the nipple and gave the brake pedal 15 pumps. Why 15? Just a number that I came up with and figured would be plenty to ensure that enough fluid went through to flush out the old stuff. Once I had done the first caliper I realised that although the caliper was still fairly clean, I now had access to clean it even better. Likewise for the Koni Red shock absorber. So, an application of CT18 and brush got rid of the brake dust, followed by rinsing it all off with the hose (ie low pressure water). Having done the rear passenger caliper, it was off to the driver's side caliper. By now I had decided to try a ratchet spanner instead of the conventional one. The head on the ratchet spanner is a lot bigger but still fits between the nipple and Brembo caliper, and meant that I could turn the nipple more. I also found that I could then use my right hand to turn the ratchet spanner back and forth, and hold the hose over the nipple with my left hand (ie the nipple head would rotate inside the hose). This was to minimise brake fluid coming out of the nipple and onto the caliper. After flushing each caliper I poked my camera into the wheel arch and took a photo of the brake pads. This was to have a record of how quickly the pads are wearing - this stuff was all fitted about four months ago, so I'm not yet sure how often I'll be going through brake pads. By taking photos, I'll know how much the pads have worn at particular dates and learn how quickly they wear. As we can see in this photo, the rear pads have almost zero wear, so I can expect them to last a considerable time. All hail the mighty front Brembo and DBA5000! Photos don't show just how damn good this stuff looks in real life. When I was originally putting all this stuff together I had already found a set of front and rear secondhand disc rotors, but then found a secondhand pair of front DBA5000 rotors at a brake parts place. I initially wasn't sure if they were suitable for my car, but a Google search for the part number that night confirmed that they were indeed DBA5000 rotors for a BA/BF Falcon. This was at 2am. Knowing that the brake parts guy hates computers with a passion (so email wasn't an option), I handwrote a note saying that I definitely wanted the discs, went to the brake shop and pushed it under the front door. I didn't waste any time getting there the next day. One of the advantages of the two piece design (ie aluminium in the middle) is that it dissipates heat quicker, thus keeping the bearing hubs cooler. I'm using Hawk Performance ceramic pads on all four wheels, but at the front driver's side wheel one of the sound/vibration absorbing plates has come loose from the rest of the brake pad. No big deal, but I didn't have time to sort that out right now. I'm not entirely sure what to do yet, but I'm guessing that I'll pull the pad out and glue the plate back on. With the Hawk ceramic pads, I had read that some people were having issues with brake noise, but I have had no noise issues whatsoever. They still put out quite a bit of brake dust, but it's more of a reddish-brown colour instead of the usual black, so it's not as obvious on the wheels. I generally clean my wheels twice a week - I have a thing about clean wheels on cars, and the chrome wheels just look awesome on this car when everything is all clean and shiny. Photo of the inner nipple on one of the front Brembo calipers. I'm a tad miffed about the scratch on my beloved Brembo caliper (bottom of the photo) - the wheels have plenty of clearance so maybe a stone or something got caught between a wheel spoke at the caliper. I spilled a bit of brake fluid on this one but wasn't fussed because I cleaned each caliper after flushing the fluid. Here's a photo showing part of the front lower control arm and the front lower control arm bush. When you brake hard, all the weight of the car gets transferred onto that bush. I assassinate front lower control arm bushes. They are evil, and must be punished. With a pair of six piston Brembo calipers on this 1,700kg car I am now doing that on a regular basis. I suspect that I'm going to end up replace that bush on a regular basis, thanks to my lead-foot habits with braking. Having flushed all four calipers the light was starting to fade and it was time to wrap it all up. A quick dunk of the brake fluid tester confirmed that I now had no water moisture in the reservoir. Here's one of the photos that I took of the front calipers and pads, showing that they are roughly about half way through their expected life. My records show that the front calipers and pads were fitted on the car on 5th September 2011, which is now 147 days ago. The car has done 48,685km in that time, so that would indicate that I'll get roughly 100,000km out of a set of front pads. Here's the fluid that came out of the car. The stuff in the orange juice bottle is what came out of the brake fluid reservoir. There's quite a bit there because I made sure that the fluid in the reservoir is perfectly clean before I start flushing it through the rest of the brake system. I drain the reservoir with a 60mL syringe (get them from any place that sells stuff for horses), put fresh fluid in, swirl it around with my fingers (with a rubber glove on) and then repeat once or twice more. The Gatorade bottle is the fluid that came out of the calipers. I did 15 full pumps of the brake pedal for each of the eight brake nipples and that filled the bottle perfectly. Now it was time to use the Snap-on TECH3FR250 torque wrench that I bought via eBay last year. I used to tighten up wheels nuts as tight as possible before I learned that doing so was only putting excess pressure on the disc rotors and thus contributing towards brake shudder. This torque wrench is digital and retails in Australia for around $600-700. Getting a near-new one from eBay in the US cost me $A284 delivered. I now tighten up my wheel nuts to the level which is specified by the manufacturer, which is 125Nm. I could have bought a smaller torque wrench, but I also wanted something big enough that could do the front bearing hubs some day - they require tightening to 300Nm, which is within the limits of the TECH3FR250. If you're having issues with brake shudder then do some homework on the Snap-on digital torque wrenches and buy one. With these ones, you use the + and - buttons to set the torque in whatever units that you want. You can alternate between various metric and imperial units with the U button. When you get close to the set torque the handle vibrates, and makes a beep when you get to the pre-set torque setting. I concluded this task by giving the engine bay a quick clean with CT18 and water. Yes, this car has done 454,000km and the engine bay still looks like new. Whenever someone (ie mechanic) does anything with my car for the first time they think that it's just been converted to a taxi. No, it's not far off half a million kilometres now. This car became a taxi when it was originally bought new, back in 2007. With washing the engine bay, there's a trick to it that I've just about got sorted out by now. There is the rocker cover (ie the green bit on an LPG Falcon) and there is the coil cover (ie the black plastic bit that goes on top of the rocker cover). When washing the engine bay, water can get in under the black plastic and into the spark plug and coil area, resulting in the engine running on less than six cylinders. Then you have to pull the plugs and coils out to dry them. Not particularly hard, but the bolt at the very back is a bugger to get to (I leave that one out these days). There's a rubber gasket that goes between the coil cover and rocker cover - I replaced that with a new one a few months ago (ie fresh, soft rubber) to make sure that I have a good seal. With rinsing the engine bay, I wave the hose in a U-shaped motion to minimise the amount of water that goes onto the coil cover. I use a garden hose for this - NOT a high pressure hose, such as what is at a car wash. Looking at this photo makes me want to go and replace the coolant reservoir bottle. I had a bunch of trouble on an Easter weekend one time with a taxi that had a crack in the bottle and was squirting coolant out. I ended up stopping at service stations every hour and topping it up with tap water so that I could get through the weekend. The resulting red burn marks on my right arm were quite impressive. If you have a BA or BF Falcon and your bottle is looking old, consider replacing it with a new (or newer) one. So, after doing all this, was there a noticeable difference in braking performance? Yes, there is definitely a better response when applying the brake pedal. It's not a huge difference, but I can pick it because I drive the car so much and know it extremely well. And, for at least the new few months, I'll know that the braking system has been been checked, maintained and is working at full effectiveness. When that panic moment happens, such as someone driving through a red traffic light at 4am or a drunk person running across the road in front of me and falling over, I'll be able to slam that brake pedal down and immediately focus on steering the car, instead of pushing the pedal and wondering what is going to happen next. Doing all this took about an hour and a half, and I wasn't rushing. It's amazing how much easier it is to do things like this in daylight. In the past I've done things like this late at night (ie 2-4am) and often in the rain. Or, gone to a carwash and done it there (ie shelter from the rain). Working on a car in daylight was one hell of a novelty today. When I started this task I realised that I really wasn't in the mood for this, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy. This is mainly because of the speed bleeders and how easy it is to flush fluid through without having to undo and tighten up the bleed nipples constantly. As a routine precaution, I replaced the top and bottom radiator hoses when summer was starting. Just as well - the bottom one was bulging a lot and wasn't far from bursting. I would recommend that BA/BF Falcon owners do that at the start of each summer. With the drive belt, you can see the smallish pulley at the front, just under the green rocker cover (ie it's got the shiny bolt head). That's the idle pulley. When you hear Falcon engines rattling, it's often the bearings in that pulley that are making the noise. It's fairly easy to replace. You don't have to replace the bolt at the same time - that's just what I was given when I ordered the part. As mentioned at the start, there are some other threads on here that explain about some of the parts that I use now. The speed bleeders in particular make it easy to bleed/flush brake fluid. So, if you haven't fallen asleep yet, keep on reading at: http://www.fordxr6tu...tandard-brakes/ http://www.fordxr6tu...e-fluid-tester/ http://www.fordxr6tu...age__p__1120730 http://www.fordxr6tu...age__p__1116643

Put something on the pads to absorb the vibrations that cause the brake noise. I used to use some CRC brake goo on the back of brake pads: but these days I'm using "Bendix Ceramic High Performance Synthetic Brake Lube". ie http://www.bendix.co...brake-lubricant I bought a bottle of the stuff for about $35 because I'm changing brake pads regularly on two taxis, but for just the occasional use you would be ok to get the cheaper sachets. You would also put a coating on the sides of the backing plates - where they sit in the caliper. Something like this:

Actually, it's now an old toy - I bought this in May last year and thought that I'd mentioned it on here as well. Thanks to speed bleeders and some other things that I now have in place, flushing brake fluid is now a fairly simple task. Whilst looking for something else that Wurth make, I came across this gadget on a web site. It's got two metal prongs poking out the bottom of it. You dip those prongs into brake fluid, press a little button and it tells you how much water is in the brake fluid. This is VERY useful. Water and brake fluid are a bad combination. Moisture in brake fluid makes it crap... brakes don't work properly and it's time to flush and replace the fluid. I actually do this with my taxi every three to six months, but will be doing it much more regularly once I figure out how to do it quicker than the couple of hours it currently takes me (ie I'm still trying to figure out the best gadget for that). I paid $123.00 for this thing at Wurth in Balcatta yesterday (28 Mumford Place, Balcatta, 9240 9500). Of course, once I got home and searched eBay for "brake fluid tester" I found heaps of others on there for as little as $30. Ah well, this one is a quality gadget and I'll probably have it for many years. For someone who is serious about vehicle maintenance then this is a good gadget to have. The Wurth part number is 071553200. Do a Google search for that number (and Wurth) for more info. For a car, you would remove the reservoir cap, check the fluid and put the cap back on. Whole process would take less than 60 seconds. Link: http://wurth.com.au/...df=A05_0013.pdf Damn... Whilst looking for that link I just found a heap of other useful stuff I wanna buy...

To get Bosch Aerotwins: look up MTQ Engine Systems in your state - you can buy them there for $15.50 plus GST. Very useful.

He'll get a fine from the Department of Transport for $250 plus the fare. And I'm going to hopefully have his address permanently banned from taxi pickups. Not quite a whacking, but a nice bit of revenge.

Pepper spray. Capsicum spray. Taser guns. I would have used all of them (if I had them) on the drunk Irish moron that chucked up in the back of my taxi a few hours ago.

You can buy the BA Premium calipers brand new from MTQ (look them up on whitepages.com.au). Trade price is around $200 each caliper (not sure what retail price is). The part numbers are B862-381 (LHS) and B862-382 (RHS). Problem is that is without the mounting brackets. If someone can get the brackets then buying the calipers new locally is very viable. The mounting brackets are different to the standard ones - I've already checked and compared (got Premiums on my girlfriend's taxi).

Oh, sounds interesting. Got any idea what brand it is, or who makes it? They seem to go for around $30 from all the usual online sources. Worth having - I would have assumed that the brake fluid in Deb's taxi was fine for at least another six months. Poked the tester in (just being stupidly curious) and all the lights lit up. Now I know to check both taxis regularly.

Put a new set of Neuton NT5000 tyres on my taxi last week. They do grip rather well, and at $560 for a set of four 235/40ZR18s they are a good deal. Plus, I've got the full Brembo setup now - 6 piston front, 4 piston rear, DBA5000 front discs, Goodrich braided lines all round. I do the occasional demo to passengers to show how well the car can stop. Males in their 20s generally don't bother putting seat belts on. The two side passengers have got seats in front of them that they can grab onto, to prevent from flying forwards. The guy in the middle doesn't. So, it's hands and arms flying everywhere, grabbing hold of anything possible to stop them sliding forward. Such as the other males. Resulting in laughter and homosexual accusations from the driver. It's good that you want to let your inner feelings out on a weekend night, but there are special nightclubs that you can do that in, instead of in my taxi. With the NT5000s, I'm doing some rather sudden brake stops and not using ABS (ie plenty of grip). Would be good if someone could try a set of these tyres on a high performance car (instead of my taxi LPG I6) and see how they handle high horsepower loads.

I poked the thing into Deb's brake fluid a few weeks ago just for the heck of it and all the lights lit up (ie one green, two orange and two red). Yikes! That fluid was only four months old (PBR Super Dot 4), so I assumed that Deb's car would be ok for a while. Thanks to the speed bleeders I had it flushed and ready to go in about 50 minutes. I'm kicking myself for paying such a premium cost for the Wurth one, and it takes a stupid size battery instead of something common, but it paid for itself that night. I figured that we'd be getting at least 8 to 12 months out of brake fluid on Deb's car, but obviously I'm going to have to check both taxis a lot more regularly. After all, that car does carry some rather important passengers... Should start charging an extra $10 maintenance tariff each time though...

This. Doesn't matter what calipers, discs and pads you're running if the fluid is stuffed and can't deliver. If the fluid is old and has lots of moisture in it then flushing it is a relatively quick and cheap improvement. There is regular discussion about brake pads, discs and calipers on car forums but few people seem to pay much attention to the actual brake fluid that makes it all work. I got some speed bleeders and put them on my and my girlfriend's taxis in June. I checked Deb's car a few weeks ago and after four months the fluid was already full of moisture. I did a complete flush in the front yard in 50 minutes, on my own. After trying these on a car, I'm hooked - it makes flushing and replacing brake fluid so much easier to do. Speed bleeders: I paid wayyyyyyyyyyy too much for a brake fluid tester earlier this year. Turns out I could have bought the same thing for around $30 if I looked around on eBay and www.aliexpress.com It paid for itself when I poked it into Deb's brake fluid reservoir recently and all the lights lit up (hence the fluid flush that night). Heck, that fluid was only about four months old. Hence, flushing the fluid straight away. For brake fluid, I am using PBR Super Dot 4, for which I pay $4.95 for a 500mL bottle at MTQ. As we all know, the higher the number, the better heat resistance it has, but the easier it absorbs moisture (ie water). I've gone with the Super Dot 4 as a compromise between heat resistance, longevity and cost.

My taxi: Brembo 6 piston front/4 piston rear calipers. DBA5000 front discs, FPV rear discs. Hawk Performance ceramic pads. Noise/squeal: none Dust: quite a bit, but the car is doing a lot of hard braking Girlfriend's taxi: BA Premium Brake Option front calipers. DBA4000 discs. Standard rear. Don't know what front pads they are, they came with the discs (secondhand) Noise/squeal: none Dust: lots of front dust, but don't know what pads they are. Going to get Hawk ceramic pads soon. Neither car makes brake noises or squeal. On both cars, I have used "Bendix Ceramic High Performance Synthetic Lubricant". I put a thin coating on the back of each pad backing plate, and some on the ends of the backing plates, where they fit into the mounting brackets. You can buy the Bendix goo in a bottle or in sachets. I bought a bottle, because with two taxis I'll use the stuff regularly. If you just want to try it out then get a sachet. Link: http://www.bendix.co...brake-lubricant Photo (you can see the thin layer of blue stuff on the backing plate):

What caught me out: I drive a taxi six to seven nights a week. I've been driving the same car since May 2009 and have owned it since March this year. Behind Perth is like a series of mountain-like hills. I had done a drop-off there one night and had a booking about 15km away that was going to the international airport. This was a valuable booking as it meant that I would get back to the main metro area and actually get a paying fare at the same time. I was coming down the hill from Darlington at a reasonable pace. Not particularly fast or anything illegal, but I was aware that the brakes would be copping a fairly good workout. I had flushed the brake fluid three weeks earlier with PBR Super Dot 4, which can handle heat. I had fitted new pads and the discs were good. So, I was aware that at least my brakes were maintained. Half way down the hill the brakes faded. Oh, they still worked, but nowhere as good as they should have. It was lucky that I have the skill and experience to have noticed it before coming into a corner. If you run wide on some of those turns then there is no room - you simply end up tumbling down the side of a very large hill, which would write the car off and possibly myself. That night really got me thinking. I drive a BFII wagon, which weighs about 1,700kg. Add in LPG, engine oil, coolant, taxi equipment and me, and it's getting close to 2,000kg. And all that weight, coming down a hill and into some very tight turns, is being held back by a pair of twin piston calipers that are working on discs that are 298mm diameter and 28mm thick. Stuff that. I started spending hours on various Ford forums learning about brakes. I quickly figured out that Brembo was the ultimate, but it was bloody expensive and not particularly practical for a taxi in terms of initial outlay cost and maintenance costs. Then a set of brand new six piston front/four piston rear calipers came up on eBay one night with a Buy-It-Now price of $2,500. I thought about it for half an hour and decided stuff it, just go and buy the damn things. I later had to figure out which wheels to get (that was a nightmare), which pads, brake lines, discs, etc, and eventually got it all figured out. I now have all the stuff on my car and my confidence in the vehicle has improved by huge amounts. Sure, it's kind of nice around town, but it's when the brakes really have to do some work that I feel more confident. I know that when someone runs a stop sign or red traffic light in front of me that the brakes will perform and do all that is possible to avoid a collision. I know that when driving down a 500 metre long downhill that the car will stop just fine at the bottom. I don't have to think about how hard I am pushing the brakes, or what their limitations are. It's cost me a bunch of money; somewhere around five grand all up. Plus, I had all the upper and lower control arm bushes and ball joints replaced at the same time, but that was all pretty much due anyway (ie 400,000km on the car). With my girlfriend's taxi, I went looking for a set of BA Premium Brake Option front calipers. They use a 325mm disc rotor. The time that I spent researching brakes on Ford forums made it clear that these calipers have the best reputation of anything less than a Brembo setup. Sure, there is the caliper that uses the 322mm discs on the BF turbo and XR8 cars, but the BA Premium calipers are apparently a better caliper. They were also used on the late 1990s Corvettes in America. After a couple of months of searching, I found a set on eBay for $300 and bought them. Postage was a killer - $100 just for that. The BA Premium calipers also use a disc that is 32mm thick instead of the usual 28mm, giving them less chance of warping. I also hit the jackpot when someone was giving away a set of DBA4000 disc rotors and I grabbed them. They were supposedly warped, but it turns out that they're not (I had them checked). Sure enough, they are working perfectly on Deb's car. There is a noticeable difference in braking performance when braking hard. She has really, really, really had enough of me rambling on endlessly and obsessively about brakes over the recent months, but after I put the Premium calipers and DBA4000 discs on her taxi on Monday night, she confessed that she had experienced brake fade several times recently. I also flush the brake fluid on both of our taxis regularly. There is a thread on this forum here about this; it is worth reading and looking through. Mine pretty much got flushed again a month ago when the Brembo stuff was put on. When I put the calipers on Deb's taxi on Monday I was stunned to see how much crap there was in the fluid reservoir so flushed it again last night. With the speed bleeders, it took about 50 minutes to flush and bleed the lot, including cleaning the four wheels while they were off. It was an easy front yard job. Time flies - the fluid in Deb's taxi was four and a half months old and it was stuffed. On my Wurth brake fluid tester, all the lights lit up, indicating a dangerously high moisture content. I still ponder regularly what other things I could have done with the money that I have spent on my brakes. Five grand could have bought me all sorts of fun toys (car, motorbike, computers) or I could have invested it in shares and made more money. But, it's also an investment in my life. Some day, when I'm doing the same run down the hill from Darlington, I'll be able to come into the corners, press the brake pedal and know that I'll have the full braking performance. I'll probably keep my Brembo stuff forever - I'll just transfer it from car to car when I change cars. Now that Ford have stopped making wagons then there is the possibility that I'll go Late model camira wagon in four to six years time and if that happens then it will be a matter of sorting out some different mounting brackets and disc rotors. My current car has four years left as as taxi, and I'll probably go looking for one of the last of the BFIII wagons to replace it. If I end up with an FG sedan then it's simply a matter of changing the caliper mounting brackets. So, I'm expecting to get many, many years use out of this stuff. For buying the stuff, sets of Brembo calipers and discs show up regularly on forums and eBay. Start searching Gumtree in your area regularly. People regularly put this stuff on their car and then remove and sell it separately when they sell the car later on. For yourself, if you find the right deal then buy it. If you sell the car later on, you'll be able to remove the brake setup and get back a large proportion of what you spent on it. I've also been to many, many auctions over the years of written off cars. Now that I think about it, I don't remember seeing many cars there with performance brakes. Have a look through auction listings and you'll see plenty of XR6 Turbos, XR8s and the usual Late model camira V8 stuff. And pretty much all of those cars have got the standard brakes. You have to wonder how many of those crashes resulted from some spirited driving and the driver didn't have enough braking power when he made a judgement error and got himself into a tricky situation. I've also got good suspension on my car - Koni red shock absorbers all round, King Springs on the front and reset leaf springs on the rear. Engine performance is one thing, but it's pretty useless if the car doesn't have the steering, handing and braking capability to match. With my car being a taxi, I can't really do anything about engine performance, but I can make sure that it's got much more predictable handing and braking. So, there you go. This little essay was basically meant to get you thinking a bit. I got caught out back in February with some brake fade and I've taken action to make sure that doesn't happen again.

If you don't want to go with a Brembo setup, then try and find some calipers from the BA Premium Brake Option. They are extremely hard to find, but turn up on eBay and forums occasionally. These are generally regarded as the best option below a Brembo setup. They use a 325mm disc, but the disc is 32mm thick instead of the usual 28mm. I put a set on my girlfriend's taxi yesterday afternoon, with some secondhand DBA4000 disc rotors. There is a noticeable difference over the standard 298mm stuff.

If you want to go with the sleeper look, just paint the whole lot flat black, then people won't notice any of it. Personally, I rather like the obvious look. This is on my taxi. But, if you want subtle then paint it all black and people won't be able to see it, especially at night. Besides, I don't think that police are going to hassle you for having a set of Brembo brakes. If anything, a roadside chat might go your way once you explain that you focused in performance brakes and suspension before pursuing more engine performance. Keep in mind that cops are used to turning up at car crashes where the driver has stuffed up and exceeded the ability of the car (ie weak brakes, crap suspension).