Hey,
Having received my new brake pads/discs for my fc from Clive a few days ago, thought its about time to fit them.
Just a few questions as have run into a few problems while working on the rears.
Firstly the drivers side caliper piston does not turn. I have a caliper rewind tool which doesnt turn it, and needle nose pliers dont either. Having inspected it closer up (and comparing with the other sides caliper) I have found that the piston boot is missing (the other side has one around the piston and turns freely using pliers or the rewind tool) and so i think its rusted in place. Any ideas on how i can remove it/free it up. I\'m thinking i should be replacing the piston boot also so where can i get the part for this or do i need a full rebuild kit for the caliper?
Would I also need to replace the piston itself at this time or just fit a new boot clean it up and all good?
Last question.. Seeing as i got annoyed at the piston on the drivers side I thought hey lets try the other side and see what its like. All easy peasy tbh until it came to trying to remove the disc itself.. No matter what I tried I can not remove the damned philips screws (2 countersunk ones) and thats using the correct sized screwdriver (as big as i could find haha) and all my strength..no luck..
Is there and easier way to remove the screws aside from drilling them out as I really don\'t want to do that.
Oh the screws aren\'t stripped btw..
Sorry for all the q\'s, but thanks for any help anyone has to offer..
I gotta say also, that although i\'ve only had problems today, good to be out in the sun at least, think i got a bit burned even :D
Guy
best way to remove the locating screws are with an inpact driver ( as i found out ) and when you put them back in use copper grease
if you cant get them out that way - then drill them out ( i know you dont want to - but its the only way )
and i cant help with the caliper - sorry
The rear calipers are a total mare - Only thing I can suggest (depending on how much time you have spare) is to go to a few scrap yards and remove a selection of rear calipers, that way you can make up a pair of good ones, or get one set sent away for service/exchange.
I\'ve often had to go the drilling route and as long as you\'ve got a replacement screw it can be much quicker.
Cheers for the advice peeps, much appreciated!
Sourced an impact driver and had some fun this afternoon, took a while, but the screws came loose quite nicely, woohoo!
I then ran into a bit of frustration trying to fit the new black diamond discs and finding that they didn\'t fit, the wheel hub holes on the disc were not aligned correctly and were set too close together if you know what I mean.
Anyone else run into this? According to the BD website they are the correct ones for the car, but they clearly don\'t fit. Its 5 lug if that helps?
Anxious to get my car back on the road now, its been waaaay too long..
cheers for any more help
if the disc dont fit then send them back - they havent supplied you FD ones have they ???
it should be 114.3 distance on the stud spacing - if it helps ??
Stu
these are the rears btw
damn that was a quick reply, i\'ll have a quick check of the discs now!
I would sugest you don\'t bother with the stock FC Calipers, Just find an FD braking and get the two Front calipers of it (not usaly expencive) Btw don\'t buy the rear Calipers as they don\'t fit.
Fc calipers from my experiance are realy Prone to Seizing, Once they have done it once you can garantee they will stick again. I sugest the Fd calipers becouse they are a direct swap and to date i\'ve not seen a stuck piston in one.
Disk wise, Both the Fd and Fc (five stud) have 114.3 pcd so the Disk should fit, i could\'nt tell you if the Center bore or the Disk off sets the same but in theory the Fd disk should go over the T2 Studs. I know for a fact the Pads are the same (i have T2 pads in my Fd at the Moment).
You can also tell if its an Fd Disk or T2, the Fd disk is larger :)
stupid question, is the 114.3 in mm? and which points do you measure between... heh. I measured between the stud holes on the (BD) rear disc and its like 45mm, the front discs were 55 or so..man i feel like a n00b.
Quote from: mosguidostupid question, is the 114.3 in mm? and which points do you measure between... heh. I measured between the stud holes on the (BD) rear disc and its like 45mm, the front discs were 55 or so..man i feel like a n00b.
On Cue....
sounds like you have some Scooby disks or something like that. All the mazda five studs are 114.3
cheers for you advice there on the calipers grizzly, sadly for me it only seems to be my rear caliper thats stuck so far :Grrr
still a little confused with the whole 114.3 pcd thing and how to check it against the new discs... i havent taken my front brakes off yet to even see if the front (BD) discs will fit. The holes for the front discs lined up fine with my rear hub (aside from the philips screw holes..) but the internal diameter of the disc itself wasn\'t accomodating enough to even fit those discs on the rear (just by way of testing in case i\'d somehow mixed the discs up)..
all very frustrating and confusing, made all the more annoying by me replacing my mr2s entire brake system disc/pad/calipers all round with no hassle!
G
ah-ha cheers for the pcd link there, gonna check that against my discs now...
ok if its the rears you have a bit more of an Issue, now there prone for the hand brake bearing (behind the Piston to seize and colapse) i can\'t say i\'ve seen one siezed but would\'nt suprise me.
I rebuilt mine a while back, i used mazdaTrix for the parts and it was not as Involved as i thought it may be.
If i was in your Situation i\'d do one of two things, Buy a recon set?? (tbh proberly the best way to go) or try and Blow the Pistons out using the Car (Conect the caliper up with no pads in, start it and give the brakes some beans, you may have to turn the Piston with some Pipe wrenches to brake any corrosion) then have it Honed and put a Rebuild kit in it.
hmmmmm..well thats interesting. According to my dodgy and rather rough ruler skills the front disc "S" - according to that pcd chart is about 67-68mm ish, not exact but semi close, which puts it around 113-115ish pcd, which to me says they\'re probably correct, especially seeing as the holes on these lined up ok.
the philips screw countersink holes are also the correct size, so looks like the front discs may actually be correct..:yes
however checking the rear discs came to something closer to a pitiful 60mm (give or take - i wouldnt trust my measurements exactly) which puts the pcd at 103 ish so miles miles off...they aint fitting ever.
Thanks again for that Grizzly, man you guys are a wicked source of knowledge :god
Guess I\'ll be returning the rears then, dammit!
there was a thread on here a while back - the FD discs WILL NOT fit a FC
so thats a starting point :D
Stu
Quote from: grinderthere was a thread on here a while back - the FD discs WILL NOT fit a FC
so thats a starting point :D
Stu
What i was saying is the PCD of the Hubs are the same so even if they where FD disks they would go over the Studs.
From memory the FD brakes are the best part of an Inch bigger in dia anyway so they won\'t clear the Calipers, thats even if the Offsets on the Disk was correct (which i don\'t think they are).
But Fd front Calpers are the way to go if you have any problems with the stockers.
I have a pair of FD front calipers up for sale at 50 pounds if your interested?
dunno if this has been said but if you remove the brake fluid cap the pressures released and makes poping the caliper n new pads on alot easier, just pop a towel around the filler tho cus it`ll run out lol
Quote from: interloper393dunno if this has been said but if you remove the brake fluid cap the pressures released and makes poping the caliper n new pads on alot easier, just pop a towel around the filler tho cus it`ll run out lol
Check the level before you start too, often people top the level up without thinking its becouse there pads are low. The result being half a Cup of Brake fluid all over the place when the new pads are fitted.
cheers for all the advice peeps, took the fronts off yesterday, both calipers are fine (phew), and the discs were all good. One came off fine, the other i spent about 30mins of solid hammer whacking on it and its still not off, so gave up for the day and will try again soon with a bigger hammer to force it off... never easy with the brakes is it, bah!
Anyway the BD front discs fit fine thankfully so only the rears to go back now, and the rear caliper to sort...sweet
have you got a compressure bud? best tool you cn own is a impact wrench lol.. took me 5 mins to remove an exhaust yesterday wit hone, spent 2 hours before that trying to move 1 nut lol
there is a cheating way to get the disc off :D
put a nut the same size as the grub screw thread and tighten it - this should make the disc pop off
when you do get it off - when you are putting it back on - smear copper grease on the back of it - if you need to get if off again - it should pop off
hope this helps - failing that - a big hammer - prob with this method - if you snap the disc - it will be hard to get off :(
Stu
TBH once the Grub screw is out i usaly don\'t have a problem getting the Disks off? Try Pulling one side as hard as you can with one hand and wacking the other side with a fair size hammer (kind of like you would with a rear Brake drum in the Good old days) Its may be just Rust on the Center of the Hub so it may also be worth givving it a Good Wire brush (try and avoid WD40 and stuff like that) Also it has been known to jack it up in a manner where both back wheels are off the deck, remove the wheel, Grub screw and place a pair of Mole grips (if using Mole grips don\'t Tighten up too tight) Or a Pipe lock on the brake Flex of the oposite side to you are working on, Put it in second gear (with the engine off) have a second person turn the wheel with the Flex Clamped off while you keep pushing the brakes from inside (this will brake the Disk free) Don\'t do it this way if you have Braided Hoses fitted.
Also when refitting the disk/Brake assembly make sure all the mating surfaces are spotless (this is most important for the Hub becouse it will throw the ballance of the Disk out if its not sat correctly on the Hub) And be carfull with the Copper Slip, just a Thin smear is enough becouse if you dorb it on the Force of the Disk spinning will throw the Exess every where (including the Disk and pad)
BTW don\'t use Grease if you can\'t find any Copper slip ;)
bit of an update! cheers again for all the help there grizzly, and to everyone else! It\'s finally all sorted...
Managed to get the front disk off eventually, took a lot of swearing and effort i tell ya. The way i managed to get it off in the end is probably not the easiest way, but it worked for me! With the caliper removed from the disk you have access to the rear caliper mounting bolts behind the disk. What I did was remove the two washers from each caliper mounting bolt and then thread them back through the corresponding mounting holes until they touched the rear disk surface, tightened the bolts and the disk started to come free. i had to keep loosening and turning the disk all the time until the disk was about a cm further off the hub than it was before but i could tell it was starting to give. Still tight as hell though. Now though i could use the hammer on one side, then the other to loosen it more until it finally freed itself from the hub. Inspection of the inside of the disk and outside of the hub was just rust-tastic, im fully not suprised at why it caused me so much grief now.. removed all the rust, cleaned the bits, and all went on smooth as :Thumbsup!
anyway rear caliper fitted fine, albeit the stupid bottom bleed screw wouldn\'t turn and i had to get creative to loosen it. :mad: but got there in the end
bled all the brakes, went through about a litre of brake fluid or so in all :chat
driven the car a bit now, the brakes are starting to bed in ok, brake pedal is much harder now, think i\'ll rebleed in a week or so. Little bit of squealing at the moment when braking but I think that\'ll go after a bit more use (and when i get new shims - as the ones that were on the prev brakes were useless to say the least)
so yeah all good, thanks for all your help. made my life much easier! :god
few other problems have cropped up but will create a new post for them, unrelated to brakes!
Cher cher
Guy :Thumbs-up
glad to hear that you got it sorted out :D :D
yeah, was stressing me out a bit with one bit after the other going wrong!
last quick q - i know i seem to have a lot lately, haha :rollin
I cant remember if i mentioned before, one of my front wheel studs is stripped a bit, so the wheel nut won\'t go on it properly.. i have a tap and die set, but due to the damn (hub??) sticking out so far and the other studs in the way, i can\'t re-thread it as can\'t turn the handle enough to start correcting the thread.:2Mad
any tips on this? i really don\'t want to have to remove the stud.....
remove the stud - probably the best way to be honest
shouldnt be a big job really
is it just a case of tapping the stud out from the rear or is anything special needed to do this or also needed to re-fit the stud again? as if its simple as that, i may just order a new stud from mazda and replace it instead of repairing the thread (i like to be lazy when i can be :Giggle)
err nope !!
im sure they are screwed in - so you might need a stud extractor - or you can sometimes use 2 nuts - lock them tight against each other and then loosen the one nearest the hub
this should lock up even tighter against the 2nd nut and draw the stud out
failing that - bit nut on the end and weld it on :D
hmm cheers for the info, never easy dammit. why can\'t i get a problem like having a dirty air filter or something for once.. haha
ah well by the time i\'ve done all the stuff to the car it should be tip top :D
again - welcome to the world of FC\'s - nothing is simple - at all :D
just to ask yet another question...brakes are still squeaking when pressed (most of the time), i\'m pretty sure its just cos theres no shims fitted yet (should be arriving in the next few days) and wanted to double check its probably cos they arent fitted (yet).....i think so as the brakes stop nice and solidly, they just like to squeak :D
also..is there a step by step anywhere for removing and refitting the wheel stud just so i dont mess it up when i do it! cheers
Guy
Hi Ya
I agree about sticking rear Calipers, took the dealer 4 hours to free one of mine then it stuck again 600 miles later and now failed MOT, replacement Caliper £110 +VAT & Fitting!!