I finally bit the bullet and bought the RB Performance Brake 2 piece rotors and pads and the Revan Racing stainless steel braided brake lines for the front and rear. Big Thank You to Snorman and 13 Cobra Toy for the recommendations on the RB product. I got around to starting the install over the Easter Holiday weekend. I took some before and after pictures, and some pictures during the install on tools that were needed and some things to watch out for. Mind you, that I am NOT a professional mechanic and most of my tools are either hand me downs from my dad or Craftsman that I have bought over the years. I actually had to fabricate a caliper piston expander from stuff I had in my “Junk Drawer”! Well, here it goes.
First things first, I slightly loosened all of the lug nuts and jacked the entire car up and put it on jack stands. After that I used a cheap turkey baster I purchased at Wal-Mart to get all of the old brake fluid out of the master cylinder and refilled it with fresh new Motul 600. I figured that having new fluid in it before removing all the rubber lines would at the least get the bleeding of all the old fluid started while the lines leaked during removal and replacement of the ss braided lines. The baster actually worked out pretty well… make sure you have some shop towels handy when removing it from the master cylinder because it drips a little bit.
I started with the rear calipers and rotors first because I wanted to clean the calipers and mounts up and paint them black for the re-install. I’ve wanted to do this since day one of purchasing the car. I always hated the way they looked. I washed the car prior to dis-assembly, so that’s why the rotor has the surface rust. The majority of the time on this install was clean up and painting of the rear calipers and mounts. I didn’t take pictures of any of that. I used the G2 Caliper paint kit. I’ve used it before on my truck and it held up for 7 years of driving through PA winters. They still looked good when I traded it in.
I pulled the brake line first. Pretty straight forward. I put my oil drain pan under my work area to catch most of what drips out of the lines and caliper. Here is the contents of the Revan Racing SS braided brake line kit.
Rear brake line mounting brackets:
Front brake line mounting brackets. There is a left and right bracket:
Rear brake lines are the short ones on the left side:
Zip Ties for securing the ABS wires to the ss braided lines. I threw these away and used heavier duty black ones that I had on hand. I figured I would show them as they were part of the kit. (Note. The kit probably should have came with 6 of these zip-ties for all the tie down locations on the ABS wires.)
Retaining Hardware for the ss braided brake lines:
Right rear old rubber brake line prior to dis-assembly:
New SS braided line installed onto mounting bracket: (Note. I honestly believe Satan designed those push clips that held the ABS wire to the bracket. What a PITA that was to get off the old bracket.)
Crush washer orientation on the ss braided line as it mounts to the caliper:
Rear right mounting bracket and ss line installed on the car: (Note. I don’t have the ABS wire attached onto the white plastic mounting clip yet.)
Underside view of the caliper looking upwards/rearwards for orientation of ss braided brake line: (Note. I don’t have the ABS wire zip tied onto the brake line yet. I used two zip ties to secure that rubber grommet that is on the ABS wire onto the brake line.)
The only real issues I had with the rear install was getting the pistons on both the rear calipers to slide back into their bores. The car only has 15,000 miles on it and the rear pads looked hardly used. The RB Performance Brake rotors for the rear are 4mm thicker than stock, so the piston needs to be retracted back into the caliper bore for everything to fit. Normally I would use a c-clamp to get the piston back into the caliper, but these calipers have the e-brake integrated to the backside of the piston bore, so I was unable to get anywhere to anchor the clamp. This is where I needed to fabricate a piston expander tool out of junk drawer materials. I used an old forward control extension bracket off of my Harley-Davidson (a piece of ¼ plate steel long enough to span both the outer pad ears would work fine too) and long bolt and nut. I also used a flat anchor type rectangular nut (I think it came off of an old Best Top Jeep soft top I used to have years ago) to push on the piston instead of point loading the end of the bolt onto the piston face. This commercially available tool probably would have worked better.
My confabulation from junk drawer items:
The other issue I ran into was that I didn’t take notice when I was dis-assembling the old pads, that there are inner and outer rear brake pads. The inners (right pad pictured below) have the extra little tab mounted to the inner portion of the pad. I mistakenly assembled the first caliper using two outers (which will go together fine) but when I got to the other side I was left with 2 inners with the tabs. When the inner pad is positioned into the outer position, the pad does not fit into the slides correctly because of the little tab.
The final assembly of the rear complete:
(thread will be continued in next response)
First things first, I slightly loosened all of the lug nuts and jacked the entire car up and put it on jack stands. After that I used a cheap turkey baster I purchased at Wal-Mart to get all of the old brake fluid out of the master cylinder and refilled it with fresh new Motul 600. I figured that having new fluid in it before removing all the rubber lines would at the least get the bleeding of all the old fluid started while the lines leaked during removal and replacement of the ss braided lines. The baster actually worked out pretty well… make sure you have some shop towels handy when removing it from the master cylinder because it drips a little bit.
I started with the rear calipers and rotors first because I wanted to clean the calipers and mounts up and paint them black for the re-install. I’ve wanted to do this since day one of purchasing the car. I always hated the way they looked. I washed the car prior to dis-assembly, so that’s why the rotor has the surface rust. The majority of the time on this install was clean up and painting of the rear calipers and mounts. I didn’t take pictures of any of that. I used the G2 Caliper paint kit. I’ve used it before on my truck and it held up for 7 years of driving through PA winters. They still looked good when I traded it in.
I pulled the brake line first. Pretty straight forward. I put my oil drain pan under my work area to catch most of what drips out of the lines and caliper. Here is the contents of the Revan Racing SS braided brake line kit.
Rear brake line mounting brackets:
Front brake line mounting brackets. There is a left and right bracket:
Rear brake lines are the short ones on the left side:
Zip Ties for securing the ABS wires to the ss braided lines. I threw these away and used heavier duty black ones that I had on hand. I figured I would show them as they were part of the kit. (Note. The kit probably should have came with 6 of these zip-ties for all the tie down locations on the ABS wires.)
Retaining Hardware for the ss braided brake lines:
Right rear old rubber brake line prior to dis-assembly:
New SS braided line installed onto mounting bracket: (Note. I honestly believe Satan designed those push clips that held the ABS wire to the bracket. What a PITA that was to get off the old bracket.)
Crush washer orientation on the ss braided line as it mounts to the caliper:
Rear right mounting bracket and ss line installed on the car: (Note. I don’t have the ABS wire attached onto the white plastic mounting clip yet.)
Underside view of the caliper looking upwards/rearwards for orientation of ss braided brake line: (Note. I don’t have the ABS wire zip tied onto the brake line yet. I used two zip ties to secure that rubber grommet that is on the ABS wire onto the brake line.)
The only real issues I had with the rear install was getting the pistons on both the rear calipers to slide back into their bores. The car only has 15,000 miles on it and the rear pads looked hardly used. The RB Performance Brake rotors for the rear are 4mm thicker than stock, so the piston needs to be retracted back into the caliper bore for everything to fit. Normally I would use a c-clamp to get the piston back into the caliper, but these calipers have the e-brake integrated to the backside of the piston bore, so I was unable to get anywhere to anchor the clamp. This is where I needed to fabricate a piston expander tool out of junk drawer materials. I used an old forward control extension bracket off of my Harley-Davidson (a piece of ¼ plate steel long enough to span both the outer pad ears would work fine too) and long bolt and nut. I also used a flat anchor type rectangular nut (I think it came off of an old Best Top Jeep soft top I used to have years ago) to push on the piston instead of point loading the end of the bolt onto the piston face. This commercially available tool probably would have worked better.
My confabulation from junk drawer items:
The other issue I ran into was that I didn’t take notice when I was dis-assembling the old pads, that there are inner and outer rear brake pads. The inners (right pad pictured below) have the extra little tab mounted to the inner portion of the pad. I mistakenly assembled the first caliper using two outers (which will go together fine) but when I got to the other side I was left with 2 inners with the tabs. When the inner pad is positioned into the outer position, the pad does not fit into the slides correctly because of the little tab.
The final assembly of the rear complete:
(thread will be continued in next response)
