Nicole Kidman

Keith,

You in Greensboro, NC? Cool. I bought my car at FCI (I'm in Cary). I showed a friend how to change her brakes (964) and then she did the other by herself. A girl! Surely you're man enough to do it...

Sorry, couldn't resist. Truly, it is simple. That's one of the beauties of a Porsche, how easily you can swap the pads.

n.

Ray Calvo

Robin says: [quote]If you can drive to Atlanta I will do it for you for a bottle of Scotch. (You supply the parts)<hr></blockquote>

Don't give him the Scotch till AFTER he's done!!!!

There are some things which are a PITA in this job:

a) front caliper removal for rotor change: you have to cut the sheet metal holder where the rubber brake line connects to the steel line at the stub axle carrier. Then again, if you're going to bleed brakes anyway, just disconnect the brake line (need flare nut wrenches).

b) stupid anti-squeal shims: I found these a royal PITA to remove; then again, I did the work on essentially brand new pads and didn't even know about them (wanted to install track pads in prep to heading to the track). Once they were out, I tossed them FAR away (after taking some pictures for an article for our Porsche Club rag sheet). Way I got them out was to use a paint scraper to separate the brake pad backing plate from the stupid shim, then was able to pull the pads out then the stupid shims. Once you get rid of these shims, 993 pad replacement is the easiest of any street car in the universe.


c) anti-wear sensors: got indoctrinated to these on my old '84 Carrera. My batting average on removing and installing these intact was less than .250. I cut the sensor off the connecting wire, wrapped the two ends together, then re-plugged the "shorted" wire back into the connector. Never bothered with them again (pad wear easily checked by looking in at caliper before/after a drive; can easily see the pad thickness).

d) brake bleed: Buy a Motive Products pressure bleeder. DO NOT use the old-fashioned "Hardy pumps the brake pedal while Laurel opens the brake bleed valve". I wore out 2 master cylinders in 2 years on old '76 911 bleeding brakes in this fashion; switching to pressure bleeder and I never had another problem in prob. 200K+ miles in various cars.

So, can you do this and save mucho green stuff?? Sure, if you've done any sort of mechanical work yourself. Do some checking in the archives.

E. J. - 993 Alumni

Hey Keith,

Buy the parts from Phil at Suncoast in florida. Then call Charles - the service manager at FCI and tell him you're a friend of mine and a few other local guys (I can give you names via email) and tell him you only want the labor. Shouldn't be more than $350 labor total.

Even better, spend a day in Charlotte with my old mechanic down there who does stuff really cheap - $55 an hour. Wont take him 3 hours. Definately worth the drive and you can bed in the new ones on the way back north. I can give you his info. Really, he will be your best bet - and trust me its worth the 1.5 hour drive down. If you tell him I told you to call, he will even do it on a Saturday. Let's just say when I need to put on my new LWF and clutch I will be driving the 6 hours down there for it.

Might have to stop by and say hi to Nicole Kidman too.

Seriously, email me for contact info.

E. J.

JC in NY

[quote]Originally posted by Edward:
<strong>Where did you find them at that price? </strong><hr></blockquote>


The price I quoted would be for OEM pads that a shop would get from a non-dealer supplier or importer with their markup included. Most shops are not going to buy the pads at the Porsche dealership.

993Widebody

FYI, I picked up a set of front pads (OEM) for $68 last year on sale from one of the dealers that advertise in Excellence. Even when such a fire sale is not going on, there are quite a few places advertising in Excellence that you can always get 20-25% off retail. I think retail for the fronts are about $120 so at $68 I couldn't do any better.

zffnhsn

I've noticed you've gotten a lot of negative feed back from your question. Yes, it's true, you can do most of the work yourself, there are many good companies that can supply the parts on your list. If you plan to DE the car then you are required to flush the hydraulics possibly pressure-bleeding with the use of the Bosch KTS 300 (Porsche System Tester) to have the computer give the command to open each channel of the system. My suggestion is to purchase and install the parts yourself, then have the hydraulics flushed by a pro, when he's down there sucking on your bleeder valves, he'll sure to notice any loose bolts or parts your left out. <img src="graemlins/c.gif" border="0" alt="[ouch]" />

Mike J

You only need to talk to the on-board computer if you have the ABD (Automatic Brake Differential) option to bleed the brakes. With the Vacuum brake booster its just like the old cars...just bleed to your preferred method.

Cheers,

Mike

Greg Fishman

Mike,
I changed my master cylinder and we also bleed the ABS pump since we opened the system between the resivior and the pump. My mechanic used a device that pluged directly into the harness next to the ABS pump and you could hear it cycling the valves etc, so that any trapped air could be moved. His worry was if we didn't bleed it and there was air between the the mc and the abs pump it could move to the calipers the first time I used the ABS and cause fade, which is not a good thing to happen at Road Atlanta. This is not a step that we normally take, but if you are flushing your system for its once a year change it is a good idea to that or if you disconnect anything between the resivior and the pump.
Greg