Lan-Front axle, brakes, bearings, wheel hub,...and rear brakes too

deQuincey

Quousque tandem...?
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so after this happened

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i have decided to take a deeper look on the front axle system,...
 
i was considering the noise of the RH wheel, that was not sure if it was a bearing or the ball joint at wishbone,
so i plan to remove all those bits and make an intensive maintenance...will see

look at the symthoms,

left side wheel, is Ok, no noise


front side wheel is not

 
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this is a wishbone, a most complex thing to remove as serious torque is involved at least at the big bolt and nut
usually the ball joint castellated nut is corroded and difficult to remove, so penetrant oil is needed and we will see how bad or well i can remove the ball joint itself,

tip, a 50-50 mixture of acetone and ATF oil acts as a good and cheap penetrant fluid for this purposes, bear in mind
 
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after some fiddling with the different elements i discover that to remove the wheel hub is not that difficult, so all the area is ready now to play,...

most scary thing is to remove the brake lines from caliper, the nuts are so delicate ...

tip, while being in this i applied the lanoline based hodt product fluid film, it is a marvel against rust and can be applied directly on body and mechanical elements as is not harmful to rubbers, it gives that shiny wet aspect to the underbody
 
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calipers, easier than what i thought

clean them in a big tank with dishwasher soap and a karcher water jet
use a lot of compressed air to dry them, and clean two times with clean brake fluid

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remove dirt in pistons and cylinders with a scotchbrite

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I had the same part break in the same way. W&N airmailed a replacement.

I bought new pistons from W&N.

The most difficult part of the caliper rebuild is getting the clips on the dust boots.

I packed the area behind the dust boot with synthetic brake grease.

I painted the calipers gold so they look nice and similar to the original zinc-chromate.

There are lots of companies that offer rebuilt calipers. All of the ones that I have found have pictures of the right calipers, but the ones that they deliver are missing the spacer between the caliper halves, so they won't fit over the thicker vented rotors.
 
Leave it to DQ to notice a $5 broken brake pad spring and to end up not only replacing the control arms but also to completely rebuild the calipers.
 
oke, i have a question about brake disk thickness,

according to the manuals i can see that theoretical thickness should be 22mm, and minimum acceptable thickness is 21mm


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so i checked it following the method that the manual explains

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and i found that LH disk is only 17,5mm

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and the RH is 17,05

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When I got my car the fronts were at 20 and rears at 18. So I put new ones in the front and left the rears alone.

If you're at 17, I would definitely change them. They are not that expensive and since you have it all apart it is really easy to do at this point.
 
When I got my car the fronts were at 20 and rears at 18. So I put new ones in the front and left the rears alone.

If you're at 17, I would definitely change them. They are not that expensive and since you have it all apart it is really easy to do at this point.

yes for sure, what i can’ t believe is how is it possible to have them at 17mm, that is a lot less than 21 , four mm is a lot of metal !
 
De Q, I find it hard to believe that you have lost 4mm, that is a 2mm grove in both sides. You would notice that as the pads do not go to the very edge of the disk. Or someone has machined them back on a lathe.

Then, why is there a minimum thickness! I imagine it is to stop the pistons travelling out too far when the pads are worn.

In my view, if there is no deep grove then they are fine. You could do a mock up to see how far the pistons travels before popping out.

I checked my reprint blue books, they give the same information as yours.

If you are worried I will measure mine at the weekend.

CB
 
Just measured my spare CSI rotors (used). They are both about 22.1mm

The specs are stamped on the rotor...

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