shmark

I've been looking through past threads, great information there, but most of it is around the S4/GT/GTS and deals with upgrade. I'm getting ready to refurb my brakes and I'll be keeping the stock setup. Here's what I'm after, any other WYAIT's? I'll also flush/bleed the clutch at the same time, replacing the blue hose too.

1. New pads (street)
2. new lines (5yr old SS lines currently)
3. rebuild calipers
4. replace wear sensors
5. clean and flush with ATE blue

ckabee1

Do you have a motive power bleeder? It made life a lot easier with the flush and fill.

leperboy

If your SS lines are only five years old, you don't need to replace these. You could inspect them, I guess, but replacing them seems like overkill.

Matt

shmark

That power bleeder is definitely on the list. I've used speedbleeders in the past, but this looks like a much better solution.

I've got a thing about SS lines from my track days. They can abrade over time which can cause a failure - and before anyone asks, yes I have seen the failure. On my track car I replaced them yearly. These have been on a street car and presumably un-inspected for the past 5 years. I want new ones on there.

123quattro

I popped two SS lines last year. They were approximately 10 years old. Scary.

JHowell37

On stainless lines, the inner hose can chafe against the outer steel hose. When I switched to S4 brakes last month, I put on OEM rubber hoses. I'd be curious to see the difference between new rubber hoses and stainless since all we normally see are new stainless hoses being compared to 20 year old rubber.

Landseer

Mark,

I rebuilt the four calipers. The total price for the kits was $55 + shipping.

Dwayne

Mark,
My '84 has a rear brake pressure regulator right off the master cylinder. It was leaking so I took it apart and replaced the o-ring. All better now. If you have one on yours, might be worth replacing the o-ring while you have the system drained.
I also refurbished my brakes including all the things you list (except flushing) and I replaced the rotors. I took the disassembled calipers to a machine shop and had them bead blasted and I painted with 3 coats caliper paint and 3 coats clear coat then reassembled with parts from the caliper rebuild kit. Here's some pics of the process I went through:

Here's what I started with


After Bead Blasting at the machine shop


Carefully mask parts not to be painted


I used coat hangars to suspend the calipers for painting


After painting completed


After assembly with caliper rebuild kits installed with new pads


I also gave the rotor shield an acid bath and painted with caliper paint and clearcoat.


And final assembly back on the car...

Landseer

Damn.

Mark, what he said!

shmark

Damn +1. That's beautiful. Dwayne you may be fairly new to the site, but I'm nominating your threads for classic status, great information and the way it should be done. Ok now it's going to take me a little longer to do, since I don't want to look bad.

F451

x 2.

I'm scheduled to do a complete brake overhaul this winter. For some odd reason I had not considered rebuilding the calipers. It just got added to the list. Thanks for the reminder.

fraggle

Caliper rebuilds are a good idea - with an 88 you probably won't be stuck with the NLA seals I am stuck with on my '87. I ended up pulling the pistons, cleaning everything and putting them back together with the same seals. Didn't split them, didn't see a reason too.

To replace all the seals in my (early?) '87, you need ALL NEW PISTONS at $50 a shot!

whitefox

Why do you need all new pistons? Unless they are severely corroded there is no need to. Typically phenolic pistons need replaced quite often but I'm pretty sure Porsche doesn't use phenolic pistons.

JHowell37

You'd need new pistons because the seals for the '87 calipers are NLA (no longer available.)