I have a leak somewhere in my brake system. It loses about 1/2 the "min-to-max" of the cylinder per month. Well, I could fix it in a few hours, but don't want to spend any money on my lousy drum brakes and noisy rear axel [p-side bearing]. So, read on:



Workin' Hard. Actually I haven't done anything to the car yet:

First, lets get rid of the lousy drum brakes:



That fixes the *** end [or does it?? stay tuned. Thanks to John Crawford. Nice guy. Anyway, to continue:







Big thanks to Kevin Landers at Rotary Resurrection for getting those to me in great shape and real fast.

Those suckers weigh 64lbs (including the spindle and a few other parts I'm not going to be using, but still very heavy! Make the stock brakes [especially on the rear] look wimpy.

Now, I'm still waiting for a few parts. The kit from CP to mount the brakes in the front and 5-lug wheels in the back [sent the MO about a week ago, probably they haven't gotten it yet]; a set of SS lines from Mazdatrix; a lot of cleaning and a little paint; the BBS wheels from a 2nd gen 'vert [got those] with some new 205/50/15 rubber, turned rotors & new stock pads for the rear and new cross-drilled, slotted, snake-oiled rotors & green stuff pads for the front.

Man, this is so much more fun than using my money for food.


But it's all coming along nicely.

 

from what i have been reading cp is slower than **** on getting parts out the door...but they gladly take your $$. no bashing here as i have never ordered from them

 

I've ordered from CP before and never had a problem. I talked to them and they said they had the parts in stock -- and even if I didn't trust them, I doubt that the FB big brake kit is an item they're selling out of fast.

Also, I haven't ordered all of the peripheral parts yet [no lines, no pads, no tires] and I need to check all the brake pistons, get those rotors turned, etc.

 

Bouis,

I"ve never seen any pics of your seven! It is beautiful! Has it been repainted, or is that factory paint? If that is factory paint then I commend your detailing job. Your car looks like it has been well taken care of. You also look like you do some nice organized work. (Which is probably why you answer all of my questions so easily.) Your car looks great. Keep posting results, and definitely keep up the great work. It's cars like yours that motivate me to finish mine....

 

Just a quick side note, you have the EXACT same floor jack I do....

 

Yea I haven't seen pics of your car before and like Jamie says, its sweet looking, nice and clean. What do you plan on doing about wheel for the rear? custom drill the axles? Should be cool when its all done.

 

Grey Hydraulic Jacks Rock!

So those big forkin' brake assemblies with the 5-bolt pattern are from what? A second gen? Do you have the 4-pot calipers? CP actually makes a kit to mount those to our rear ends?!

Cool!
Jon

 

the big brakes are for the front. although having big brakes at all 4 corners would kick some major ***.

 

CP sells wheel spacers/adapters for the back that give the wheels the same backspacing as the front with the big brake kit. The big brakes are front only, sorry about any ambiguity, I just assumed that everyone was familiar with the kit.

The paint on the car is original. It looks really nice in pictures and pretty darn good in person. It's got a lot of gloss [hand glaze and NXT Gen wax], but it's not perfect. The camera is very generous.

The jack is a wally-world special, as I'm sure you're aware. $20 for a floor jack, stands, and wheel blocks ain't bad anywhere. But I don't trust it with my life and no one should. Always use jack stands!

I need more than a wheel cylinder. Some clumsy ******* knocked in one of my brake pads when I got my car aligned. When I got home I heard a nasty sound from the front driver's side and the pad clip had cut two nice grooves in my rotor. It still works fine but I don't think it can be repaired, and I'm certainly not going to put new pads on it. The front pads I have really, really suck; they dust like you wouldn't believe.

So then I'd need new front rotors and pads, plus wheel cylinders, shoes, and getting the drums turned. As much as parts for these cars cost, a lot of money by itself.

The brake kit and adapters from CP were $535 shipped. That sounds bad until you realize that I had the vert BBS wheels sitting around, and that parts for the 2nd gen 4-piston brakes are actually cheaper than the ones for the dinky 12a brakes. Plus the hub and rotor are seperate, which is nice. The brakes & hubs cost me $100 shipped. I got the snake-oiled, cross drilled, slotted, whatever, rotors for $49 shipped on ebay. They have a lot better pad availability too. So yeah it costs a lot of money but it's not so bad.

According to popular wisdom, leaving the master cylinder from the drum brakes is supposed to put a little more emphesis on the rear brakes, so I think I'll give it a try instead of switching to a GSL mcylinder immediately. If it's bad I'll swap it as well; it's just another $50 (sigh).

 

 

Oh man, your gonna love those brakes!Its like dropping an anchor out the window.Ive got SE brakes in the back and 12" rotors up front,but for the most part,your running what Ive got on mine.

Side note....You can run a TII or GXL mastercylinder,prop valve and vacuum booster for even better/safer stopping.I have them on my car.Spent a little time in the wrecking yard swapping parts between junkers to verify it before I bought.It seemed like the logical thing to do since my brakes almost exactly matched a 5 lug 2nd gen's.Id buy a new master,but the prop. valve and booster are usually a safe bet with junkyard units.
The master and prop.valve are bolt on,no issues.The booster will require 2 of the stock aluminum spacers underneath to clear everything,and youll need to shave just a little metal off the side of clutch slave cylinder, to clear it.The TII/GXL master and prop.valve will be sized correctly to operate the 4 pot rotors, and the booster is much bigger than the stock FB,which reduces pedal effort.

 

Hmm, yeah, I think those brakes have 11.25" rotors. Pretty damn huge compared to the stockers. I don't even really *need* big brakes, as where I live is what I'd call gently rolling hills, never more than a few hundred feet high and miles long.

About the 2gen parts, I am seriously considering it. CP says that no master cylinder or proportioning valve is required though. I'm just going to give what I've got a try. If it doesn't work to my satisfaction, I'll try the 2nd gen parts.

I really appreciate your input and experience, Steve.

Also, add to my list a set of four "speed bleeder" nipples for convenience.

 

 

i have 2 sets of those 4 piston brakes, but i don't know if i want to do the swap + the hassle since i'm happy w/ the SE's brake setup; just upgraded pads, and rotors.. brake lines down the line of course

and the adaptor kit fr. CP looks like a big dent for my wallet

but ill save this thread just in case

 

Got the kit from CP the other day, but I don't get to play with it until Monday evening. Look forward to a few pics then!

Edit: I sent the money order by airmail on the 17th of September, so that means it took three weeks total.

That's not bad considering how long it takes things to get to and from Canada.

 

heres what my new brakes look like.... damn they are nice

 

I'd leave the master cylinder as is boius. I left mine in when I ditched the original axle from my '79 and the rearward brake bias isn't that noticeable. I really noticed some initially, but that was due to the brand new rotors and pads in the back compared to my stock drums and their ultra leaky wheel cylinders.

Actually I've found that the brake bias suits my driving style quite nicely when I'm autoXing. A quick tap of the brakes tends to bring the back end around a touch, that's probably because of that extra bit of pressure that the drum prop valve keeps on the rear lines. It's not really an issue under any sort of moderate or hard braking.

 

Yeah, in addition to being slightly leaky, my drum brakes also don't work worth a ****. I can feel them pulling to one side under hard braking, but they're so ineffective that it doesn't amount to much. I've adjusted them before but I think the shoes just need to be replaced.

Tomorrow [Monday] I'm going to put the disc rear end and rear brakes on the car, along with the SS lines. I may not have the energy to do it since I've been pretty busy lately and getting 3-4 hours of sleep per night.

The rear end has been sanded, primed and painted [gloss black] and the rear brakes have been wire brushed, cleaned and prepped for painting. Gonna paint the calipers red for the hell of it. Got the pads [Hawk HPS for the rear] and the SS lines from Mazdatrix. I gotta get the rear rotors turned tomorrow before I do it though.

Anyone know a good procedure for cleaning out the rear diff? The oil that's come out so far looks pretty clean but it can't hurt to flush it somehow. My plan as it is now is to put some of the $2/quart stuff in, drive it a hundred miles, and replace it with synthetic. I guess I could pull the axels but I really don't feel like adding to the workload.

Look forward to pics tomorrow if everything goes well.

 

any updates?