Front Disk Brake Upgrade

[S30Driver]

Late last fall, I had some discretionary cash and purchased a front Wilwood brake upgrade kit from Silvermine.   Also a 15/16" master cylinder upgrade to compensate for the larger calipers.  I knew I had an issue with a slightly warped rotor which was my main reason leading to the front brake refresh.

 
The install went relatively smoothly, replaced the wheel bearings & races with Timken's while I was in there, and refreshed the hubs.  Tried to modify & retain the original dust shields, but they interfere with the new, larger vented rotors so will have to get some new ones made up from aluminum or stainless as I don't like running without them on a street driven car.

Two issues I ran into with this kit were .... Silvermine states you use the stock caliper bolts to mount the machined adapters - you cannot.  The stock bolts are too long by 9mm and the non-threaded part of the bolt would prevent you from tightening the bolt to the adapter & spindle ears.  To Silvermine's credit, I called Edan & he offered to send me some replacement bolts if I could give him the measurements.  I opted to source them from Fastnal.

The correct bolt is M12 x 1.25 x 30mm grade 10.9  (part number 11114852) The stock bolts are 39mm in length and even if you could thread them in all the way, they would contact the Wilwood calipers.  The stock lock washers work fine with the new bolts.   The supplied bolts for the caliper to bracket are of course fine.

The second problem was centering the calipers on the rotors.   In my case the inboard pad was tight against the rotor & a measurment showed centering to be about .030" off.  (I could not turn the rotors with everything tightened to spec)   No shim provision is included in the kit.  Rather than roasting the new rotors on one side, I decided to center the calipers.  Shimming can be done to either the caliper ears & bracket or the spindle ears & bracket depending on which direction is needed to center the caliper.  I aquired some thin SS washers and installed them on the caliper ears and both sides were correctly centered.

Bled the brakes, checked for leaks, and enjoyed the firm pedal, smooth stopping power, and extra bling of the new brakes.
I did this about 12 days ago and after 150 miles, all is well.     A nice upgrade.  

Stock vs Required bolt

Caliper adapters installed with correct bolt

Centering caliper   (don't drink that Coors light, it was an empty to hold waste bleed fluid) 

[siteunseen]

Discretionary funds! WTF is that?

Coors in discretion.

 

[S30Driver]

50 minutes ago, siteunseen said:

Discretionary funds! WTF is that?

Coors in discretion.

 

Sorry Cliff, let me re-phrase ....

I used up a big huge chunk of my favorite beverage money 

[siteunseen]

18 minutes ago, S30Driver said:

Sorry Cliff, let me re-phrase ....

I used up a big huge chunk of my favorite beverage money 

Would you be adopted? That'd be cool. But you look like Eric Roberts,  Julia's brother. I think we have the same genes. Old dirty blue jeans as ZZ Top would sing.

[siteunseen]

Water and beer. That's all a man needs. A little nooky is good too but with enough beer I don't care.

[Patcon]

2 hours ago, siteunseen said:

with enough beer I don't care

I never been able to drink that much beer...

[siteunseen]

24 minutes ago, Patcon said:

27 minutes ago, Patcon said:

I never been able to drink that much beer...

After enough beer it's like trying to stuff a fiddler worm in a key hole.

[Patcon]

With too much beer, my inability to walk straight does not mean I don't desire to walk straight...

[siteunseen]

1 hour ago, Patcon said:

With too much beer, my inability to walk straight does not mean I don't desire to walk straight...

Tell that to the cops!  8^)

[sweatybetty]

too much beer to catch fish is too much beer