Look what was in the driveway when I got home

Dan P. · Jun 3, 2004

MY 5.0 front brakes. Not bad for $75 Comes with everything I need, pads, rotors, calipers, spindles, and even brake lines.

Asha'man · Jun 3, 2004

Not too bad. I'll be doing mine for about $40 in stock parts, plus Hawk pads and the rotors need to be resurfaced. If you get to it before I do, post up tips and whatnot.

Ash

Red_LX · Jun 3, 2004

Hm, I paid $75 for mine too. Course that was with struts and V8 front springs too...

Anyway, you want tips, well here's a couple.

1. The spindle is hard as hell to get off the ball joint. When I did mine I supported either side of the spindle with blocks of wood and knocked the ball joint stud through with a large punch and a BFH.

2. Also the bolts holding the strut to the spindle are pretty hard to budge too. However if you heat the nuts with a propane torch and then hit them with an impact wrench, they should come off fairly easily.

3. The factory Torx bolts on the 2.3L calipers suck, and they're hard to get off. Make sure you have a big enough Torx bit (the bolts on mine had a round head with no hex) and if they don't budge, stop and heat the bolts with a torch (people like to put loctite on caliper bolts so you gotta melt it out). Once you get those bolts out, throw them far away.

Other than that...it's all really straightforward. I take it neither of you guys are switching to V8 struts? (if you are I have a tip to go with that as well)

351wcoupe · Jun 3, 2004

I would just like to mention the ultimate irony. LOL!
It would be ironic if you pulled into your driveway too fast, couldn't stop because of your 4cyl brakes and ran over your V8 brakes.

kiddiccarus · Jun 3, 2004

Just be glad they didn't fall into the driveway as you left

Asha'man · Jun 3, 2004

I'll be switching to V8 struts, hopefully will be getting a 15k mile set of Bilsteins for $300. What was your tip?

Ash

Dan P. · Jun 3, 2004

What to keep and what to replace? I see that one of the calpier pins is bent, and the dust cap is in crap shape. What do you guys see or know of that might need to be replace? The pads are said to have only 10,000 miles on the, but I think I will start with a fresh set anyway.
Thanks
Dan

Asha'man · Jun 3, 2004

You should definitely resurface your rotors and get new pads. I'm planning on going with Hawk pads, the street performance ones. They're supposed to be quiet and pretty dust-free, but still offer substantially better-than-stock stopping power. I think you can get caliper pins at a parts store, and probably a dustcap too. Are our old dustcaps the same size, maybe?

Ash

kiddiccarus · Jun 4, 2004

Caliper pins are about 20 for 4 of them and they may toss in the dust cap free. they did for me. Oreilly's At least your dust cap is intact, mine was split and someone used JB weld to try and fix the break in it. Looked horriable.

mr_woodster · Jun 4, 2004

Chances are ill be doing this soon enough.... The thing i find the most amusing is when i walk into the part store and ask for "so and so part for a 88 turbocoupe, 87 mustang, 86 turbocoupe, 740 volvo" ...soon to be 5.0 parts..sometimes i forget what i drive...FRANKINSTANG!!!

Red_LX · Jun 4, 2004

Asha'man said:
I'll be switching to V8 struts, hopefully will be getting a 15k mile set of Bilsteins for $300. What was your tip?

Ash

Well, I meant if you're taking 5.0 struts directly off a 5.0 car. I don't know if this was a difference between years, or between 5.0's and 2.3's, but when I tried to put the 5.0 struts on my car, the strut plates wouldn't fit (the studs didn't go through the holes in my strut towers). Turns out the plates were slightly different (BTW the brakes were from an '89 GT, my car was a '90)

Paul C. · Jun 5, 2004

I was thinking about 5.0 brakes but just replaced my stockers. Did the rear ones too. Good bleeding and they stop great! And they are a bit lighter!

Dan P. · Jun 6, 2004

Well I think that I am going to wait on this project till the end of the summer. I think that I am going to get new rotors, 73mm calipers, SVO MC, SS brake lines and many other small things that will improve the brakes. I will just save up my money until I have collected all the parts and take a day or two to do the swap. Another thing is I can put rear disks on later because of the SVO MC.

Look what was in the driveway when I got home

Dan P.

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Red_LX

I’m not much help unless you’re looking for ****!

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