My name is Earl, and I have a Stainless Steel bolt fetish =)

jc43089

I like!

REKIII

What did you find on the Autozone rebuild kits? A bunch of years ago I was looking for rebuild kits for my rear Neon calipers. Autozone had them listed, but couldn't get them.....I thought it was odd.

Earl

I actually forgot to give them a ring yesterday. I will be shooting them a call as soon as they open today.

Edit: Just gave them a call. They cannot get rear kits but they want $8 for each front.

jc43089

Why don't you want to just buy rebuild kits from any BMW parts place, pelican, bavauto, etc? The quality of parts store parts leaves something to be desired in my opinion.

Earl

I cannot find rear kits that I amn sure will work. Supposedly the compact has model specific rear calipers. I have been told Centric is the way to go. They are OEM quality and used for the rebuilt calipers people purchase.

Bassboy3313

Have you tried metro auto parts? They seem to have the oddball stuff most the time. I mean, they had rebuild parts for my e21 calipers. Just another thought.

Sent from my XT901 using Tapatalk

Earl

Bassboy3313 said:

Have you tried metro auto parts? They seem to have the oddball stuff most the time. I mean, they had rebuild parts for my e21 calipers. Just another thought. Sent from my XT901 using Tapatalk

Andy looked and they don't look like they carry the seal kits=/

I started yesterday but removing my old front lines, all of the pads, and then the carriers.

I will be removing the pistons from the calipers today. Yesterday I couldn't find a rubber tipped air nozzle to be able to blow them out with compressed air.

I got the carriers all cleaned up and ready for powder too.

I looked into the pricing for the carrier bushings, carrier guides, anti-rattle clips, bleeders, and new mounting bolts and was blown away.

It is about $200 to buy sets for both the front and the back. There are brass carrier bushings that end up costing almost $20 less when getting everything else. They take away the side to side give that the rubber bushings have, making the pads wear flatter under hard braking. They aren't really neccessary for me since I won't be pushing my brakes to the limit, but I am not sure if it will hurt upgrading to them to cut down on cost. In my head upgrading sounds like it makes sense instead of paying more for factory bushings.

Has anyone ran brass carrier bushings on their calipers? This is turning into an overpriced nightmare=P

jc43089

I decided against the brass bushings as from my reading it appears they need to be disassembled and lubed frequently, as in a couple times a year. I haven't had any issues with uneven wear using the stock setup, I will be using braided lines when I put mine back together, the pedal should have good feel with ABS delete and braided lines.

Also what sort of blaster do you have?

Earl

That's the thing that is swaying me away from them. I wouldn't really mind lubing them regularly since they're easy to quick disassemble. CaTuned is coming out with braided stainless e36 lines and I am getting them for my fronts as soon as they get in next week=)

I just looked at RockAuto and my mind was blown yet again. They have the carrier guides and bushings for dirt cheap. They even seem to have rear rebuild kits for over $30 cheaper than anywhere else. I might as well just get it all from them and see how it works out. What do you guys think?

REKIII

The lube and relube thing is what initially came to mind....although I didn;t even know they existed. I suppose it's probably what race cars use, which would make sense as everything is rebuilt every race or 2. I think you would want the rubberized ones just for the longevity, even though they are not as high performance.

Note: I almost always go for high performance over just about anything else.....but having to relube the brakes a few times a year is enough to make me turn away.

REKIII

can you find out who makes the cheaper units? They might be an off brand with lower quality standards. Sort of like when you buy from pelican, they have OEM, OEM supplier, but not branded, then offbrand 1 and usually offbrand 2. Gets cheaper each time, but, depending on the part, sometimes it's not worht the money saved on the off brand. This is especially true when looking at suspension, drivetrain, and braking components.

jc43089

Just make sure any braided line is DOT approved, some of them aren't. Brakes are no place to cut corners.

jc43089

REKIII said:

can you find out who makes the cheaper units? They might be an off brand with lower quality standards. Sort of like when you buy from pelican, they have OEM, OEM supplier, but not branded, then offbrand 1 and usually offbrand 2. Gets cheaper each time, but, depending on the part, sometimes it's not worht the money saved on the off brand. This is especially true when looking at suspension, drivetrain, and braking components.

^This, I don't like doing stuff over because of crap parts. Not saying RA is bad, just in general. I bought a cheap replacement radiator support for out Maxima because it was rusted out and not only was the fitment terrible but it was so much thinner than the OEM part that It couldn't even support the engine cradle. I had to make a reinforcement from angle iron and weld in to hold it all together.

Earl

Centric makes the parts. They are one of the brands people usually recommend for caliper rebuild kits. CaTuned lines should be DOT approved. They are a very legit shop in California=)

jc43089

I have used Centric brake parts before and they seem good. The rotors I have gotten were from Canada in fact.

RamRod E28

jc43089 said:

I have used Centric brake parts before and they seem good. The rotors I have gotten were from Canada in fact.

Canadia parts on a German what has this world come to????!!!!!

jc43089

^ on my Nissan.

Earl

It is better than using chinese parts=)

I got the piston faces sandblasted and will be getting rubber plugs tonight so that I can sandblast the caliper bodies tomorrow.

RamRod E28

its just any time you get on the brakes the car probably asks "you sure you wanna stop eh?"

Earl

I started yesterday by rounding up a rubber tipped air nozzle. I got the pistons to pop right out.

I saw how nasty the face of the pistons were so I figured they could use some cleaning up.

Only one has a good bit of corrosion.

I think it should be fine since I wasn't having any issues with it before rebuilding these.

I dropped the caliper bodies in the parts cleaner yesterday to get all of the brake fluid out of the bore. I then stopped by the hardware store last night and grabbed some rubber plugs to block off the holes for the piston and brake line while they get sandblasted/powdercoated. I should be able to get them nice and clean by the end of today=)

WIBIMMERS

My name is Earl, and I have a Stainless Steel bolt fetish =)