2+2

If it keeps on raining, I hope to have time to replace my pads, rotors and fluid in my Turbo-S. I know I have the S4 brakes but is there anything unique or special I need to look out for in servicing them? This will be my first attempt at brakes. What is this "dampener" some posts allude to in my search for info?

Rick

There is some helpful DIY stuff that you can find on this & the 944 forum that will guide you through the process quite well.
I'd also suggest contacting Paragon (as for Jason - he has the same car and is very helpful). They can help you sort out pads, rotors, bleeders, etc... and guide you through the process.
It's actually quite simple once you do the first wheel.

Luis de Prat

Hi, I just did this on my S2, but I also own a 951S and the setup is very similar. It's a pretty straightforward job, but the biggest caveat is not to scratch the rotors or pinch the piston seals when opening the calipers.

The other thing if you're a perfectionist like me, is that it's VERY easy to mar the powdercoated finish of the calipers themselves. I used channel lock pliers wrapped in tons of duct tape and still marred the finish in a few spots. After my problem, I heard of someone who had glued sections of bicycle inner tube to the jaws, and this was the definitive solution. I'm doing this next time!

As for the job itself, you will need the following parts:

2 sets of brake pads (4 fronts and 4 rears).
4 new sensors (old ones may still be good, but they break super easily when you remove them).
16 (no, that's not a typo) or more adhesive noise dampeners.

I know the early turbo and the S2 take 16 of these suckers, in four different sizes. Since the 951S brakes are different in the front, they may take more. I am not certain of how many pistons they have.

What you do is pry open the calipers and unglue the old dampeners from the old pads. This allows the pads to slide out. You will need needle nosed pliers to fiddle with the dampeners.

There are several good writeups out there, let me know if you are interested and I will post mine here.

GOBOGIE

Luis, I'd be interested if you could post it!

jason952

you can just get by with pads. it is tough to reuse the sensors, but doable. Also, I wouldn't worry with the dampers and just use liberal copper grease/anti seize on the backs of the pads. Depending on the type of dampener, they will either just be a plate on the back of the pad or they will have extend into the pistons and you will have to pry them off as luis describes. what pads wil you be running now? It is very easy, just be safe in supporting the car.

Luis de Prat

List,

Thanks to everyone's advice I was able to get the pads and sensors installed in the S2 cabrio.

Once I had everything set up in the parking structure where we keep the car (floor jack, tools, etc.) I started with the right rear wheel and worked my way around the car. And yes, it is a headache to lift the front end of the 944 S2. I had to drive the car front onto a pair of bricks so I could get the floor jack underneath. The pressure points are always a mystery and I stared at the illustration in the owner's manual in disbelief for several minutes, wondering for the umpteenth time which of the 2 markings in the area described was the actual pressure point. :-0

As it turns out, one of the 2 POs had put Jurid pads on the rears, with no silencers, and some non-descript pads on the front with silencers.
Getting the locking pins loose was tough. I couldn't follow what to do from the Clark's Garage write-up. Basically, you compress the middle with pliers to release the top of the spring from its catch. However, my pliers were too wide to fit in the gaps, so I ended up using needlenose pliers instead. The bottom of the springs were frozen inside the caliper
and would not swivel out until I gave them a good shot of brake cleaner, and pulled quite hard and they swung out very slowly.

Removing the pads was basically just like everyone said, only I had to grab the caliper with the channel-lock pliers to pull the pads away from the rotors, and this marred the caliper finish a little, even though I had a ton of duct tape around the jaws of the pliers. I couldn't see any other way of prying, as there were about 2 mm left on the pads and there The rear pads slid out fairly easily. I basically used the channel lock pliers to squeeze the old pad backing plates and the caliper together, to
expose the pistons. Once I had enough room, I used the channel-lock plier rubberized handles to push the pistons back until they were flush with the inside of the caliper. On the pads with silencers, I pried with a screwdriver between the pad backing plates and the silencers to unglue
them, then slid the pads out and dropped the silencers out of the piston holes.

I noticed that the brake pad sensors on my car had only one contact per caliper, meaning they were connected to the inner pad only. The new
sensors I got from the dealer had TWO connectors.

I connected one to the groove in each pad and later had to figure out a way to wind the wire around the locking pin so it wouldn't rub against the wheel or the rotor.

It later occurred to me to have a peek at my '91 951 and duh! It has some holders for the wires on the locking pins, but threading them through the pins had the same result.

Once I had all the pads and connectors fitted, I put the wheels back on. Sure enough, when I was finished the brake fluid reservoir had overflowed
a little and the paper towels around it had caught some of the spillage but there was a little puddle on the floor when I rolled the car back, so I should have removed some fluid before doing this.

Other than that, when I had everything tightened up, I started up the car and pumped the brake pedal. It was soft but quickly gained pressure and
felt normal again. However, the brake pad warning light WAS STILL ON. I wonder what I did wrong? I'm not familiar with how the brake pad sensor
circuitry works, so if you have any ideas, please feel free to comment.

For some reason I unplugged all the sensor plugs with the wheels on the car to see if it would make any difference. Well, it did because after I
plugged them back in, both the brake pad warning light and the ABS warning light are on. :-O The ABS light comes on when I engage the brakes. I
think I must have blindly swapped an ABS sensor plug for a brake pad sensor plug. I'll take the wheels off in the morning to confirm this, but
what other reasons could cause this to happen?

This should have been a quick and straightforward maintenance job, I know, but I spent a ton of time pulling the sensor back out to see if they were connected properly, etc. After several hours, I finally went back to our building and got quite a big scare when I saw myself in the elevator mirror. I looked like the Tar Baby in "Song of the South." I knew I had brake crud all over my hands and arms, but it sure looked nasty on my face :-)

2+2

Thanks guys...no time this weekend although I was able to give it a good wash and pick up a Sarasota glass top in need of a bit of TLC from another poster.
I will be using Metal Masters as my current pads (dont know what) just cakes on dirt which attaches to my vaselined forged cups...can wait to put on my 993's....