I'm going to talk a bit about my friend Frankie's car. It is a 2002 Mustang GT. He called me up and asked me what was involved in replacing (and upgrading) all four calipers, rotors and brake pads. I did some research and came up with a few options. The 14 inch s197 caliper upgrade in the front, cobra upgrade front and rear, big brake setup, etc. His reply was pretty simple - What about the kit from power stop? I hadn't heard of it. The part number he gave me was KC1302-26. I looked it up on rock auto. The price point was NICE! and they were offering a discount code if you bought the kit in October. The kit is 520$ from rock auto, with a 100$ core charge. That puts the final cost at 418$. Not bad for 4 re-manufactured calipers, brake pads front and back and rotors! The calipers are also powder coated. It seemed like a sweet deal! I also advised him to get the Russel stainless steel braided brake lines. Since we had to remove the calipers anyway, this was just one more step and a nice upgrade to the pedal feel.
Frankie showed up at my house on Saturday morning ready to go. I started working on the front drivers side while he was working on the back drivers side. I removed the caliper bolts, hung the caliper and removed the rotor. I hit the new rotor with brake clean, then put it on the spindle with a lug nut to hold it in place. I made sure the new caliper had the correct hardware. The caliper bracket was already installed so we installed the pads in the caliper. Next up was the brake line. I disconnected the line from the caliper. It immediately started dripping - so be ready to catch the fluid or it's going to make a mess. I put the old caliper off to the side. Using flare wrenches, I removed the factory brake line from the hard line. As I tried to remove the banjo bolt from the stock line, I realized that the crush washers wouldn't come off. We needed to reuse that banjo bolt. We had to use pliers to hold those washers in place and spun the banjo bolt to back it out of the washers. New washers came with the SS Braided line kit. I installed the new braided line onto the hard line and tightened it and secured it. Next I installed the banjo bolt with new washers onto the new caliper. Then installed the caliper on the rotor and tightened the caliper bolts. The first wheel was done!
In the meantime, Frankie was fighting with the rear caliper. The emergency brake cable is a pain to disconnect. It really requires two people. One to compress the spring, and the other to actually remove the cable from the spring. I guess thinking back that we could have used vice grips or a clamp to hold that spring, especially if only one person was working on it. We got it disconnected after a few select words of encouragement. What I didn't realize is that with everything disconnected, including the factory line, the brake fluid was dripping for a good long while. When he was stuck with that drivers side caliper emergency brake cable, he moved to the passenger side and disconnected that caliper. I left Frankie to keep working on it and I moved to the passenger side front caliper. The procedure was the same as the front drivers side.
By the time I finished the front drivers side, I moved to help with the other emergency brake cable. Then we started the re-assembly. We found out right away that the powder coating was also inside the hole where the emergency brake cable sits. It was way too tight and we couldn't get the cable in there. We needed to remove the powder coating with a dremel and then we were able to install the cable. We did get the emergency brake cables installed, but not the stainless braided lines yet. Frankie got a call, and had to run an errand. Since his car was down, my wife and I drove him. He finished what he had to do after a few hours and we headed out to get something to eat. When we got back to the house, we picked up where we left off. I noticed right away that there was no more dripping fluid. I said - this is going to be bad, we shouldn't have let the system go dry. He gave me the look like "what could possibly go wrong?".
I forgot to mention that the rear rotors did not want to come off. I have a neat trick for this. I got a bolt and put it through the caliper bolt hole On the inside, between the rotor and the caliper bolt hole, I threaded the bolt into a nut. Then with a wrench on the nut to hold it in place, I tightened the bolt with a ratchet. This eventually puts pressure on the rotor, trying to push it off. Sometimes it pops the rotor free, other times I just need to hit the face of the rotor on the opposite side of where the bolt is. A pretty firm hit with a dead blow hammer usually does the trick.
We installed the new rear rotors with a lug to hold them in place. The best way to do the rear caliper install is to install the caliper bracket, then the pads (with hardware) into the bracket. Remember, the emergency brake cables are already installed on the calipers. Then we installed the caliper onto the bracket. We needed to push down and hold it in place to get the bolts for the pins installed. The last step was to install the SS braided lines. We remove the old ones from the hard line, along with the bracket. Then we installed them with the new crush washers and the old banjo bolts. I learned that its a good idea to leave them loose at the hard line until you get the correct orientation. Then once everything is in place, tighten it up.
The last step was to bleed the brakes. Frankie sat in the car while I went around wheel to wheel cracking and closing the bleeder. Finally, after a few hours, we were getting clear fluid at all four corners. The problem was that there was still NO firm pedal. It went straight to the floor. We did fix some leaks at the hard lines and banjo bolts while we were doing the bleeding. It is REALLY easy to strip the fittings. So if the fitting leaks, tighten it just a little more and repeat until the leak is gone. It was time to call it a night. We were whooped. We would get after it again tomorrow.
After some research and a post to FB about the no pedal issue, a few suggestions were made. 1 - someone noticed that the bleeders for the front calipers were on the bottom, which means that the front calipers were on the the wrong sides. The bleeders need to be on the top of the caliper because air rises. We needed to swap the front calipers. Note - they were labeled incorrectly - never trust the labeling. 2 - The fact that the system dripped for so long meant that the master cylinder could be an issue. The extended travel could have blown out the seals in the master cylinder. Frankie ordered a new one just in case, it would arrive Wednesday. 3 - The master cylinder may need to be bench bled. We decided to wait to get the new master cylinder before removing the old one to bench bleed it. That way we could replace it if needed.
Frankie arrived again on Sunday and we swapped the calipers and installed them again. Back to bleeding for a good long time. Some air did come out, but still no pedal. We decided to put the wheels back on and re-group on Wednesday. Monday came and went. Tuesday I was talking to a colleague at work who is also into mustangs. After some discussion and some research, we found that bleeding the master is MUCH easier than on the older cars. The
older design meant that the master had to be removed from the car and
bench bled. The newer master cylinders have bleeder screws on the side
of the cylinder itself. No need to remove it! When I got home Tuesday night, I was telling my wife what we found. She said - we should try it, sounds simple enough! So we headed out. She sat in the car and worked the pedal while I bled the master cylinder. First time she held pressure on the pedal and I cracked that bleeder, a bunch of air came out. We did the same thing again and the pedal seemed firmer! I moved to the other bleeder and the pedal was firm. We repeated the process a few times to make sure we got all the air out. I called Frankie to tell him the good news.
Frankie showed up on Wednesday and we went out to bed the brake pads and new rotors. After the process was done, we noticed that there was some fluid on the inside of the wheels, likely from the banjo bolts not being tight enough. I offered to take it in again and fix it, but he needed to go and said he would do it once he got home. A day or two later he called me and told me that the leaks were fixed! He also told me that there is a torque spec for the banjo bolts. He said the brakes feel great and were getting more aggressive as he drove the car.
I'm glad we were able to finally get it all figured out. Lesson learned - never let the system drip dry as it causes the need to bleed the master and all four calipers, which can take a long time. Also, don't trust the labeling on re-manufactured parts. Always put them side by side with the parts you are removing to make sure they are correct!
