Brake Job from Hell!!

Man. I guess the brakes on this thing are original or something. I started off by ripping the boot on the rear caliper, So I bought new ones. Got quoted the wrong price but ended up getting a discount because of ther error. So. I get the calipers and try to put them on and look who's walking down the street but good old Mr. Murphy to throw a wrench in the works.
The slider pins are seized. Ok no biggie. I go and order some parts take the bracket off the car and go to my vise.
Well, looky looky. Mr. Murphy must have slept over night because three of the pins heads snap off. Ok, So I start to drill the pin out. Well I guess Mr. Murphy felt like having a coffee this morning because the damn drill bit snapped off inside the pin 3/4 of the way through.
Agghhh. Guess I have to go reorder my parts now and replace the whole works.
Ah well, At least everything is going to be new back there. Im just waiting to blow the hoses now when I go to bleed them LOL.
Cant wait to do the fronts......

sounds like you hade fun lol

It seems, sometimes, that what appears, and should be a 20 minute no-brainer, often takes the longest time to do, as well as being a real PITA. Good luck with the rest of the job, and try to keep Mr. Murphy away from you. LOL

Originally posted by rairbird:
It seems, sometimes, that what appears, and should be a 20 minute no-brainer, often takes the longest time to do, as well as being a real PITA. Good luck with the rest of the job, and try to keep Mr. Murphy away from you. LOL

I hate that you start a simple job and the next thing you know every tool is out and half the project is ripped apart.

The rears can be a PITA. Fronts are MUCH easier.

I have had lots of experiences where the easy 15 minute job turned into the 6 hour job from hell.

My rear brake job started out nice and turned to heck real fast. Slider pins were seized and it took me 6 hours to get them out. Then it took 2 days to locate some new slider pins and another day to get them. Then noticed that the sloted and drilled rotors had cracks at the drilled holes sooooooo another 2 days for new power sloted rotors to make it to me and then 3 hours to put it all back together. To think I was just starting out to put new brake pads in the rears.

Well. I went to Ford the other day for the replacement rear caliper bracket. and they wanted 80 bucks a side. Thats highway robbery, and there the only place I could get them. Luckily there was a turbo coupe that still had them in the wrecker. I pulled one off for the replacement and took it and the other one I was playing with to the local machinst to have them extract the broken pin on the one caliper I messed up and to pull the seized pins out of the one I got from the wrecker. Its only going to cost 40 bucks and I dont have to worry about screwing it up again myself.

Napa has 89 T-bird loaded calipers. Caliper, bracket with pins and pads. I was told they were the same for the rear. They have been on for 2 years now and working fine

Item#: SDC2424082
Price: $73.99
Core: $82.50

they were $35 a piece 2 years ago I thought it was worth it for less hassel
Barkin

Originally posted by barkin9:
Napa has 89 T-bird loaded calipers. Caliper, bracket with pins and pads. I was told they were the same for the rear. They have been on for 2 years now and working fine

Item#: SDC2424082
Price: $73.99
Core: $82.50

they were $35 a piece 2 years ago I thought it was worth it for less hassel
Barkin

Thats what I did. NAPA loaded calipers with brackets / pins all assembled for the price of just the brackets from Ford.

I just stuck my brackets in the vice and torched them until they were red hot. The pins came right out after that! Then I cleaned them out really good with the trusty pistol cleaning kit, hosed them with brake cleaner, repainted them black and went back together with new slider pins and dielectric grease. They're still working good as new and all I paid for was grease and pins.