Monday, May 9, 2011

Front Brakes On The 300 Are Done!!

It was quite an adventure, and probably totally unnecessary. But it was fun! And I now have totally new rotors and pads on the front of my car. And a hundred bucks in new tools!

If you follow the blog, you've already read about my trials and tribulations around just getting to this point. The rust fused wheels were a real pain in the rear, but once I cracked that seal, things moved along much faster.

Here's the wheel off. Really, the rotors are actually pretty clean, and there's a TON of thickness there. They could easily be turned and used again later. In fact, that is my plan. The pads were also practically new.



Here's one of shiny new jack stands in use. Nice!



The hardest part was removing the two bolts that held the caliper in place. I'm really happy because I got to use a bunch of tools from my Craftsman tool set I picked up a couple weeks ago. Cue "kid in a candy store" music, please.



And here's the whole thing taken to pieces. A tad more rust than I would have liked to see, but oh well.



Here's the whole thing put back together.



And here's the best part of all! The new tools I had to buy to get this thing done! I need that really long wrench as I was not getting enough torque from my 1/2"-er that came with my set. This one really did the trick on the passenger side wheel. Hammer was for bangin'. Wrench was for the bolt that held the caliper closed. I also needed an adjustable wrench for my set, so all good.



Next up, rear brakes!

Also, a big debt of gratitude to these two threads that provided great walk through's of the entire process:

http://www.lxforums.com/board/showthread.php?t=95260

http://www.lxforums.com/board/showthread.php?t=101366

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