TeamCapri
Tech, Repairs, Upgrades => Capri N/A 89-94 => Topic started by: yen on February 18, 2009, 10:47:00 AM
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Hello neighbour,
In a few days time I'll be doing some work on the brakes of the Capri.
At first it started as replacing worn discs but then I spoke to the brake shop and they said that I'll also need to do the pads (which is a given) and might have to replace the rear caliper.
He was a bit reluctant to book me in (mainly because they only open for 4 hrs on a saturday) so I figured I'd look into the matter and do it myself.
So what started out as a simple brake job has turned into a brake overhaul adventure.
So far I've bought 4 new rotors.
I'll be picking up :
a set of pads
4x brake seal kits
2x brake fluid
2x used calipers (from wrecker)
maybe wheel bearings (haven't had time to look at thet yet)
My dilemma is that I've never done anything more complicated than an oil change. I've read up about the process and I understand what I have to do but was just wondering how hard is it to replace the seals on a brake caliper? Anyone tackled the task before? Any advice to share?
And are the rear wheel bearings easy to replace?
Just fishing for tips, I've read up about the process over the past week.
Thanks guys
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i have done a lot of brakes. make sure you have a rubber mallet to hammer off the rotors. as for the seals they normally pop in and seal right up. i would suggest maybe getting all new clips and springs as well since you got everything else. paint them while you are there too..LOL
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Rubber mallet? No worries, I'll borrow one off a mate aswell as a G clamp
I didn't know you can change springs and clips aswell. I thought you had to reuse the orginal ones off the caliper.
Need the car on the road by monday morning so may have to forgo painting
Thanks for the tips Gostlrs
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Hey Yen! Oh! WoW! Get someone with you that has some mechanical knowledge and experience. If the calipers are leaking get others, don't attempt to rebuild them.New bearings and seals should be installed, make sure the bearings are fully packed. The fitting that attaches the brake line to the caliper requires a special wrench known as a flare-nut wrench. With that wrench hopefully you don't round-out the flats on the nuts. The auto parts store should guide you properly. After getting everything together then comes bleeding the system. You almost should do front or back individually at a time, in case you get in over your head. Any procedure is always best done when someone is there to hold your hand the first time through. Wish you luck! Gus
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Unfortunately the Capri is not like most other cars. The rotors are bolted to the inside of the hub, so its a fairly complicated job to replace them.
You'll have to unbolt the front axles, remove the hub (exposing the bearings) and unbolt the rotor from behind. These are not floating rotors like most cars where the wheel and lugnuts clamp the rotor into place. You need a heck of a lot more tools than a mallet to remove them.
The front bearings are pressed onto the hub and if you want to change them you'll need a shop press to remove and replace them.
The rear rotors I've never done. I believe the rotor is part of the bearing race, and the bearings should be serviced while you're in there. Again, not a floating rotor design.
Im not trying to be pessimistic but if all you've ever done is change your oil then this probably isnt the best place to start
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Hey Yen! The bearing set up I talked about is for the rear. They are the tapered bearing and race. The front are pressed on and are sealed and don't require packing or greasing. The hubs will have to be taken to an auto machine shop or parts store to have new bearings pressed on if needed. Again you may want to do the front one day and the back another with guidance. Good Luck Gus
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Ohh man, uncool...
Things always turn out more complicated than they seem. Unfortunately there's no one else available to guide me through, I'm still keen to learn and what better way than to turn a spanner and get my hands dirty? =)
What I'm really terrified about is doing more damage than good, because in real life there's no CTRL+Z.
Thank you all for the prompt response, atleast now I have some what of an insight to what challenges lay ahead.
I'll tell you how it all turned out on Monday
Cheers to me not dicking things up!
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Gus, the front bearings definitely will need to be lubed, and yes this should be done by someone that has the equipment and the experience. The front preload is set by the spacer in each of the front hub assy's loose it and it will eat bearings forever, swap it with the other side and you may never get it right again. I bought a tool called the "Hub Shark" it worked great. A hydraulic press is the shop standard, if you have access to one and know how to use it, it will make your life much easier. Under no circumstance should you be hammering anything (no hammer mechanics allowed). Buy all the seals and bearings for the front once it is apart you should replace everything the same is true for the back. The rears are much easier, pull the nut and everything comes apart in your lap. You will need to press in new races for the tapered bearings (everyone always skips this step) but that is pretty standard.
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Hey Phillip,
After reading that post I'll probably avoid doing the bearings altogether if I can. I'm doing all the work in my front yard and I don't have a hub shark or a press.
1 day to go. I'm re-reading over all the notes I've collected in regards to removing and replacing calipers, swapping rotors (which may be redundant since we don't run floating rotor setups), changing brake pads and bleeding brakes.
1 Q though, what am I supposed to use to plug the brake hose line when I remove the caliper? Guide says not to bend the line. And how does the 'assistant' (brake operator when bleeding) manage to stay in the car, press the brake pedal and keep an eye on brake fluid level in the reservoir? Head out the window Ace Ventura style? Just really small queries that have eluded me.
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Hey Yen! If you haven't noticed a roaring noise coming from the front end or notice a lot of play when you get to the axles then I wouldn't bother with them. In all my Capris I've only changed two of those bearings. Both were on the passenger side. One car I know for a fact that youngsters drove the car a lot because of tire wear patterns. I suspect a lot of hard launches were made and probably a lot of wheel hop occurred. This wheel hop would have pounded the bearings to their death. And yes Phil, I have a twelve-ton shop press with a multi-tude of press fixtures that enables me to do a lot of things. Years of tool acquires. These Capris are my real first experience with front drive cars, so I'm gaining recent knowledge. I do have some experience with four wheel drive as I've owned three broncos and one lifted short-bed F150 pick-up. Gus
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Hey Gus,
No, none of those symptoms yet. I had my wheel bearings done when I installed the shocks about 3 years ago. Although I did have to replace one of my hubs with one I picked up at the wrecker, so realistically I have 3 newish bearings and one old, weathered and worn bearing (passenger rear)
I was thinking while I was under there might aswell change that too, but it seems well beyond what I can do.
Sounds like you have a work shop at your place Gus, were you in the trade at one stage?
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Hey Yen! Unless you see obvious signs of worn bearings then concentrate on the brakes. No! I was never in the trade directly. Growing up, my parents owned a small plumbing service company. We did a lot of our own vehicle maintainence and repairs. My father before the pluming trade was a ship-fitter. He was more specifically a plate welder during WW11, building ships for the Navy. We had a 3000sq ft shop building with almost every imaginable metal fab machine. When I took over the company I grew it from a four truck fleet to a fifteen truck full time fleet with numerous specialty vehicles. Though I'm not certified, I can stick and wire-feed weld with anyone. My youngest son is even better. When I was a lad, I drag raced cars and motor cycles and auto-cross raced cars. I was very fortunate growing up. I could go into it further ,but maybe another time. Gus
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damn why does it need to be so hard? i want to get some slotted/drilled ones soon. i see an all day project ahead of me then
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Gus,
That's quite an amazing history you have.
My folks owned a clothing store for ten years. First just one, then 2 and now none.
I never had anything to race with but I clocked up thousands of hours on Gran Turismo =)
Parents always advised against anything labour intensive when I was growing up so only thing I got to build was Lego.
Now I'm a Architectural Drafting Technician with next to no mechanical experience, taking on a seemingly monumental task of changing brakes. Hahaha, not exactly an epic biography but that's as exciting as my life gets.
I quite enjoy listening to other people's stories (just nosey i guess) and I'm looking forward to hearing yours when the time comes. (http://smile.gif)
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It seems Mazda/Ford designed it so you'd need to take it into the dealer for brake service.
For what its worth, when I did my brake upgrade I just re-packed the front bearings, I didnt replace them.
Its a good idea to have a torque wrench and a FSM for the torque specs for the bolts. If you need them for this weekend i can grab them, or see www.techcapri.com (http://www.techcapri.com) You're also going to need a very large socket (1 1/8? i dont remember) to remove the axle nut.
I'll be posting some pictures shortly
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As far as brake fluid leaking when you change the calipers, the only thing I'm going to recommend is re-use the old calipers. If they're not leaking or the slide pins are in good shape I'd just re-use them. Dont disconnect the brake like just tie them up out of the way. If you do remove them be very careful of the torque on the banjo bolt, if you snap it you're done. I've just put a small pan under the line to catch all the fluid. Be very thorough bleeding your brakes afterwards, you will need to do all 4 corners.
Anyways here some pics of the Capri hub:
(http://www.werbatfik.com/uplimg/HPIM1658.JPG)
Here you can see the bearing, bearing seal, and the back face of the hub. The bolt hole in the foreground is how the rotor bolts in.
(http://www.werbatfik.com/uplimg/HPIM1659.JPG)
Side view. The front face with the lugnuts is where the wheel bolts. Most cars have a rotor that fits over this area.
(http://www.werbatfik.com/uplimg/HPIM1660.JPG)
Heres how the rotor bolts in from behind
(http://www.werbatfik.com/uplimg/HPIM1661.JPG)
This is how it would look on the car minus the axle nut. You can see the rotor "trapped" inside the hub assembly.
Hope these pics help you and everyone else out.
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UPDATE
Hey Everyone,
Thought it is time for me to own up and provide closure on the brake rebuild saga.
In short, it got (half) done, but not by me.
I wanted to wait until I had replaced the front rotors before I posted any pics or updates but at this rate it could take months.
Here's how it all went down.
Armed with as much info I could gather off the internet I was somewhat confident I could do the job, but perhaps not finish within the weekend. At thispoint that was my only concern. (Thank you Gus for the encouragement)
I got up at 8am on Saturday to start the work. Made a trip to the autoparts store to pick up the last things on the parts list (fluid, copper washers, misc. tools, etc) Got home and jacked up the car onto stands.
So far so good.
I wanted to have one caliper off the car fully loaded to see how things went together just incase the rebuild went wrong.
Removed rear wheels and followed the instructions word for word.
"STEP 3 - Remove the caliper mounting bolts"
I got the lower bolt off without too much trouble but I must've spent a good few hours and half a can of WD40 trying to undo the upper bolt until Eureka! I felt the bolt slowly turn. Wondering why it didn't suddenly give way like the other one I tucked my head under the arch to inspect only to find the head of the bolt rounded and still very much fixed tight to the caliper mounting plate.
I wasn't going to take no for an answer and made the mistake of persisting. After another few hours the bolt still had not budged but did look a bit like a rivet.
The sun was setting and I had one last option. A friend of mine who once worked as a mechanic suggested as a last resort to either find a single hex wrench set or oxy torch the bolt, I spent the rest of the afternoon and a bit of the evening searching for a set of special wrenches.
At 8pm, out of time and 24 hrs since my last meal, I finally conceded defeat. Beaten by one bolt.
At this point I was a real mess. I had gotten myself into trouble and now all I can do is take the car to the shop to get me out of trouble. I felt really, really stupid.
At about 9pm I noticed headlights in my driveway. My mate I was on the phone with earlier had turned up, not with the tools I needed, but with alot of extra man power.
I told them that it wouldn't make a difference since the wrench couldnt bite onto the head anyway but regardless they all spent the next hour taking turns at this bolt, me telling them not to worry about it because I'll be taking it into the shop. So at the end of Saturday we had made no further progress but having my mates over cheered me up alot.
Sunday I got up early again and pieced back the caliper, brake pads and double checked any nuts and bolts I had turned.
By Sunday I realised that the Capri was definitely not a "floating rotor" setup.
Monday I took the car into the shop to get the brakes done. It wasn't cheap so I asked the guy to just do the rear rotors, rebuild the read calipers, replace the lower rear training arm and check my rear suspension geometry.
TIP :
The mechanic told me that the brake fluid type can be found under the brake resevior cap. I had purchased the wrong type days before.
So after AU$400 worth of labour the car was back on the road but not worry free. Mech said that the front rotor and brake rebuild will be more difficult (ie expensive) and I'll have about 4 weeks of life left in the current pads, I'll be needing a set of new tyres immediately and worst of all, all my suspension components are now straight, it's my chassis that is bent.
The news sort of derailed any future plans of modding the Capri.
Anyway, here are some pictures.
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/100_4460.jpg)
This is what prompted the brake job
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/WorkBrakesTools.jpg)
Picture of the tools we used
TIP: Invest in some decent tools, we went out and purchased a Sidchrome socket set after the ordeal.
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/WorkBrakesParts.jpg)
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/100_4476.jpg)
Parts and guides
The internet is a wealth of information, if only it were the relevant information.
BTW Thank you again Rocketman for the very useful link, it gave me a better understanding of the situation.
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/WorkBrakesRear.jpg)
The car in the garage, jacked up and ready to work on.
Note, my brother's AW11 MR2 which we later did brake work on; sucessfully. =)
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/100_4456.jpg)
Up on stands and ready to rock.
Check out the underbody flouro light. It's not there for decoration, yo.
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/Devestator.jpg)
And a pic of the bolt, face blurred for its own safety.
(http://i699.photobucket.com/albums/vv354/charleenguyen/100_4482.jpg)
Wheels back on
Sorry no after pics yet, it just looks like normal, but cleaner. I'll post up more pics when the fronts get done.
On a side note my brother sourced some goodies for his MR2 including a set of brakes from the supercharged model. As an act of redemption I took on the task of rebuilding his calipers, replacing the rotors and replacing his old brake pads to Project Mu street spec compound.
Cleaned up the new set, replaced all the seals, regreased the pins, machined the rotors, bled the system and before the week was up the job was done, without a single problem. The advantages of a floating rotor setup...
Week after that we did his girlfriends brake pads and knocked it over easy.
I can honestly say I've gained alot of knowledge and experience by taking on the task even though I failed at my first attempt on the Capri.
I'd like to thank everyone who replied in this thread, your contribution proved immensely valuable in my endevours.
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Hey Yen! I never expected you to have that much trouble. How did they finally unseat that bolt? I have a set of bolt extractors for round headed bolts made by Craftsman tools of Sears. These grab bolt heads after they are damaged. But even then, the way your misfortune went, they wouldn't have worked with-out other procedures. So the mechanics you took the car to stated that the entire Uni-body is twisted. How interesting. I'd get a second opinion from a good frame man at a well equipt body shop before swearing at your car and abandoning her. Your Capri looks like a real sweetie. Gus
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Thanks for the advice, Gus. She's a bit of a treasure, a blessing and a curse at the same time. There are more complete pictures in the photography section of the forum.
The bolt I couldn't get out myself. The guy at the work shop took no longer than 5 minutes to take it out though. I couldn't see what he used but he did cuss when he saw the rounded bolt head.
I have been looking around for a place that deals with chassis straightening. All the body shops here send the car away to have it done and i haven't had any luck searching for the trade.
Suspension shop guy said it wouldn't be worth the bother. I'll just have to find the right place to get a bit of advice.
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Hey Yen! Thats too bad about the run around. Here, most of your bigger body shops have frame racks. Gus.
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More pics here
Yen's Capri Thread (http://teamcapri.com/capri-gi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=000117;p=1#000008)