Replacing my Brakes Options

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This weekend was step one of two of replacing the brakes on my '76. The previous owner upon selling to me told me that he had rebuilt the front calipers and the brake fluid looked very nice and fresh in the master cylinder. Looks like a nice fresh tank of ATE super blue..... I will find out later that what's in that tank doesnt look like what's in the brake lines....

I started this project because when turning the wheels in the rear to set timing, I can hear the left rear brake dragging, and loudly. I feared it was a bearing, but it wasnt. The brake was dragging. I lift the car and put it on 4 jackstands, the evil kind (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) I need some proper pin-thru stands. I have all 4 tires under the car in case the car decides it wants to smoosh me.

I'm using 4 new rebuilt calipers from Eric Shea. With these calipers are 4 new rotors, new front bearings, new seals, 4 new softlines, all new pads. A total of $1038 in parts from Eric.

From the pic...the parts are gorgeous!

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After some more investigation, it turns out that not just 1 caliper was dragging. ALL FOUR were dragging. No wonder this car feels so sluggish and tends to overheat. Besides the fact that my timing may be off and my tune may not be so great, I have a left rear caliper dragging like crazy, a front right dragging a little, left front with what sounds like shitty bearings, and a right rear that sounds quieter than the rest. Sounds like doing all 4 at the same time was a good idea!

All it takes to take off the rear calipers is a 19mm box wrench and a rubber mallet. An 11 mm wrench is what you need for the brake line itself.

My car did not come with a parking brake and the left mechanism was jammed anyway, more on that soon....

It's much easier to take off the caliper if you unclip the hardline from the trailing arm. this means you dont have to detach the hardline from the caliper right away and have a bit of wiggle room. I did this and put the 19mm on the bolts and gave them a few whacks with the rubber mallet. Surprisingly, these bolts dont seem rediculously tight like most of the bolts on this car tend to be! It was pretty easy!

First, I took off the left rear caliper.... Or should I say, I loosened the bolts on the caliper and that sucker DIDNT MOVE! It was clamped onto the rotor so hard, i needed to bang it off with the rubber mallet! It was like having a parking brake on ALL THE TIME. How I didn't go spinning out of control constantly is beyond me.

I removed the hardline from the caliper and the brake fluid that came out was red and kinda awful looking...

Here is the pic of the left rear caliper... not much room is there? No wonder the car smelled like hot brakes all the time!

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The right rear caliper came off pretty easily and wasnt a big deal compared to the left rear. It didnt need any coaxing to get off the rotor, so I guess it was somewhat okay. It was still touching the rotor though...

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On to the fronts!

I shot the rotor screws with PB blaster as well as the inner adjuster covers on the rear.... more on that later..

I moved to the front left caliper.

It was also pretty easy to get loose. you guys have to remember there is a locking tab that you have to bend back off of both front bolts before any loosing can be done. I turned my wheel full-left to more easily work on the caliper bolts, as they can be a pain to see.

I loosed the bolts and then undid the hardline... This caliper came off without coaxing and something that was wierd....I didnt have any fluid leak out of the hard line at all. I put some saran wrap over the MC and screwed the cover down over it as per the haynes manual. The only line to leak after this is still the left rear. I leaked around 30 cc's of fluid, starting red and gukky, ending up blue...

Here's the left front caliper. it was dragging slightly, but the bearing needs attention here on this one...

What's with the seals on the piston? is that right?

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The last caliper to remove for the day is the right front. This is actually the one dragging the second loudest.

Behold my amazement when I see this....

[Joe Bob]

Looks like a herniated disc from Joe Sharps XRays.....

[purple]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/WTF.gif)

How does this happen? These seals look completely melted! What's going on here?


I want to end this section with how I removed the softlines.

You need an 11mm open wrench and a 17mmcombination wrench and 17mmdeep socket, more on the deep socket in a minute.

The front soft lines are easy to get off because there are two clips, one holding either end of the line. Make sure you have the 17mm on the soft line and the 11mm on the hard line and lefty loosy those suckers apart. I think you will break the hard lines if you dont support both sides of the joint. The soft lines can be on there pretty good! My soft lines were original to the car by the small metal collar on them saying 05/75. Making these lines 33 years old in service!

The rear softlines are a BITCH to get off. Eric Shea gave me a great tip on how to get them off: you need to cut the line very close to where they go up into the body. Then you put the 11mm wrench on the hardline up there, and put the 17mm deep socket on the softline fitting and then CAREFULLY wrench away. I had to use needle nose pliers to get the clips off of the softline fitting to drop it off the mount there. You have to work it back and forth and it'll come off...eventually. I bent the mounting tabs down slightly to seperate the softlines from the hardline joints. I suggest cleaning the hard line flares thoroughly before re-attaching the new soft lines.

The rear brake rotors came off really easily after the PB blaster was used on the flat-head screws that keep them on. The inner adjusters came off really easily after PB Blaster. I didnt have to do anything other than use a 4mm allen key, easy.

The left caliper had brake fluid inside the parking brake mechanism, I think this means the thing is shot. I'm not sure though.


I will end by saying that my brakes didnt feel spongy per-se. They were pretty much non-existant until you pushed nice and hard on the pedal. I think the brakes are in horrible shape and am really glad that I got a whole new set. I hope the car will be less sluggish and will not overheat in the future. I'm also looking forward to some improved stopping.

Does anyone have any recommendations for some brake fluid for me? I have super blue in there, I'd like a gold or orange colored fluid so that when I flush the system I know when I'm good and flushed.

I'm awaiting some parts that USPS lost in shipping before I can finish the job and put these pretty new brakes back on. I'll post the completion in here! Hope you enjoyed!

[Joe Bob]

ATE makes a blue and gold colored fluid. I alternate them on flushes....

[purple]

Oh good! Do I need DOT4 or DOT5?

[Joe Bob]

ATE is DOT 4, I would avoid DOT 5 like the plague. DOT 5.1 is OK

[purple]

ATE is DOT 4, I would avoid DOT 5 like the plague. DOT 5.1 is OK

why is dot5 bad?

[Eric_Shea]

Good write-up.

Fluid inside the handbrake mechanism means the inner adjuster seal is shot.

Are you sure those are the dust covers we're seeing? It may be anti-squeal compound on the back of the pads. If it is the seals, this is what can happen when you have a pad dragging. They get "extremely" hot.

In your first picture of the rear caliper, you can see uneven pad wear and a piston that is out further than the other. This is indicative of stuck pistons or severly skewed adjustment. Looks like your inner piston is stuck and not working.

It's spring time gang. Everyone should take off all 4 and do a once over on your brakes. This is a perfect time to change your fluid and check your pads. If you don't know the last time your rubber lines were replaced... now would be a good time to consider it.

I've said this before; "I've seen hundreds of calipers from the inside. You can tell which ones have been maintained properly and which ones haven't. Take care of your brakes and they'll take care of you."

This also helps point out the issues with 914 brakes. Many times it's the fairly large nut behind the wheel that causes the problem. Patrick is doing the right thing for sure. Stock 914 brakes in proper order are amazing.

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I'm hoping for some amazing stopping power! My MINI puts the 914 to shame for sure!

Hell, I have to leave a HUGE following distance to the car in front of me. The lowliest of trasheaps can out-stop me. I almost rear-ended a woman because she decided to stop RIGHT in front of me. something that the MINI could easily handle. I had to swerve and panic break and lock up the tires to not hit her. that was a BIG wakeup call.

The autopsy above and Erics comments are a good reminder to all I think. Brakes are very important. Most cars have over 1000 brakes horsepower. This car likely had 300 at best. The brakes were scary bad on this car. I've driven 914's with worse, but they didnt belong to me (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Eric, the fronts look for sure like the seals have flipped inside out. It's really scary to see that stuff on my car. It's no wonder only my left front would lock up the tire. that's some hairy times when I slam on the breaks

[Eric_Shea]

why is dot5 bad?

Silly-cone.

Because our systems were designed for glycol based fluids I tend to like high performaing DOT4 or... DOT5.1 (which should be the glycol equivelant of a DOT5)

DOT5's or silicone fluids can aerate fairly easily and they really don't have many true advantages over good glycols. We're also not sure what long term affect DOT5 will have on the current brake system with it's seals from 1970 etc. DOT4's and 5's don't always play well together. Mix the two and you'll get an interesting sludge.

[Eric_Shea]

My soft lines were original to the car by the small metal collar on them saying 05/75. Making these lines 33 years old in service!

I'd bet this was the initial problem with the brakes which then necessitated a rebuild by the PO. The pads still look fairly new. I'd be willing to bet he rebuilt them and still had the same problem (old, swollen lines holding pressure on the calipers and locking up the system). It may even be why he sold the car... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[purple]

Would that explain why no fluid leaked out of the system? I can't have sealed it up with some measly saran wrap that well, could I?

[Eric_Shea]

Would that explain why no fluid leaked out of the system?

Pretty much. Your lines were basically swollen shut. The pressure exerted by the MC forced the liquid through and to the calipers but then it stayed and locked up the brakes etc.

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No wonder the holes in the brake lines looked so tiny! When I cut them at the body they looked rediculously small inside.

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I found a website that detailed the bleeding procedure...looks like I'll be heading over to sears to pick up an Actron vacuum pump and bleeder kit. I dont have an assistant to pump the brakes for me, so I'll be using a vacuum bleed system.

I've gotten a tip to wrap the bleeder threads in teflon so that no air gets by the threads back into the system when you're doing this as well.

I can't wait to get down to the garage this weekend! I ordered all 8 caps for the bleeders as my car only has the front 4 on and they look pretty much done.

I'll be using DOT4 fluid I find at autozone or o'reilly. I'm going to put some 140wt gear oil in my tranny while it's up there and replace the seal in the shifter console. I need to also replace the reverse switch because the plastic section of mine is GONE.

Also, going to put the little rubber boot on my clutch cable and put the left-side air deflector back on the car (the one in front of the engine)

I also have a WORKING thermostat with bracket i just got off of ebay that i'll be hooking up, also while i'm under there. This is gonna be a kick ass project. prolly gonna be on jackstands a while.... it's natural habitat (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif)

[Carlitos Way]

I love seeing highly motivated individuals work on their cars...

Damn... story sounds vaguely familiar. I also spent about a grand on brakes when I got my car.

C:>