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Showing results for tags 'Them\s the brakes!'.
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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).