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Brake calipers painted, new pads, and some stereo improvements, too

ChipG

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I decided to paint my calipers and install Caliperfexion studs and Power Stop Z26 pads while I was at it. As I decided to completely remove the calipers to paint the whole things, the job took a bit longer than expected, but I'm happy with the outcome.

The BMR jacking rails made easy work of lifting the car and putting it on jackstands, and I picked up the Reverse Logic lug guides to easily get the wheels on and off without banging them around, which was especially helpful when remounting the wheels.

I didn't want to end up having the whole system gravity drain, so I unclipped my brake sensor switch and found an "assistant" who would be happy to hold light brake pressure on the pedal for as long as the job took. Thanks kids! And yes, I also released the handbrake after this to make rear brake removal easier.
Brake Assistant.jpg


Removing the front brakes took a little work breaking the mounting bolts lose and removing them - my air ratchet didn't have enough power so it was manual all the way. I cleaned off the remaining Loctite, cleaned up the stock bolts and ran them in and out until the mounting threads were cleaned up, and rubber-banded a baggie around the brake line to catch fluid. It sat for a week and didn't fill more than that on any corner, so I didn't lose much fluid.
Front Brake Removed.jpg


I didn't have the special tools to remove the parking brake hardware from the rear but was able to make do with these - I used the trim tool to compress the spring and the brake line wrench to slide over and compress the top connector to get it out of the bracket.
Tools.jpg


Everything removed.
Rear Brake Removed.jpg


Then I removed the brake pads, pins and hardware, bleeder valves, and crossover tubes. I'm a little concerned at the look of one of the front pads after less than 3k miles:
Front Pad.jpg


Is the damage along the center line normal?

I cleaned up the hardware with a wire wheel as well as getting the Loctite out of the rear bolts which I reused.

Front hardware before:
PXL_20210321_195649786.jpg


Front hardware after:
PXL_20210321_200329406.jpg


Rear hardware before:
Rear Hardware Corrosion.jpg

Rear Pin Corrosion.jpg


Rear hardware after:
Rear Hardware Clean.jpg

Rear Pins Clean.jpg


Rear bolts before and after:
Rear Bolts.jpg

Rear Bolts Clean.jpg



I cleaned the calipers and sanded the Brembo logos so I wouldn't have to try and line up on them perfectly:
Front Caliper.jpg


Rear Calipers.jpg



And I used sawhorses to prop them all on for painting.
Ready to Paint.jpg



Since I was painting the entire calipers, one G2 kit didn't give quite enough coverage. I put two coats on everything and a third just on the outer faces, but I wasn't happy with the coverage in total, so I ordered a second kit. While waiting for it (and after the first kit had cured for a couple of days), I lightly sanded some of the runs and uneven parts on the exposed faces. After getting the second kit, I gave everything two more coats. After curing, I applied the Brembo decals then applied 3 coats of VHT high temp caliper paint clear over the top. The finish isn't perfect, but pretty good and I'm happy with the gloss and look. We'll see about durability.
Painted Front Caliper.jpg

Painted Rear Caliper.jpg



I reinstalled the hardware with some silicone brake lubricant on the pins and hardware and on the backs of the Power Stop Z26 pads where the caliper pistons would contact them.
Painted Front Caliper Assembled.jpg

Painted Rear Caliper Assembled.jpg



After installing the Caliperfexion studs up front with blue Loctite and then a coat of anti-sieze on the stud and ARP assembly lube on the threads, I remounted all the brakes (using blue Loctite on the stock rear bolts) with new copper crush washers on the stock banjo bolts all around.
Painted Front Caliper Mounted.jpg

Painted Rear Caliper Mounted.jpg


I'm a little wary of the durability of the paint as, of course on the last rear caliper, I dropped one and chipped a good amount of paint (fortunately not visible when wheels are mounted). I also noticed some chipping/peeling around the edges near the bolts holes. I think next brake work I do I'll do a little touch up with the brakes mounted.

So, after bleeding all four brakes with the Motive power bleeder, I mounted all the wheels back up and she's back on the road!
GT350 Front Caliper.jpg

GT350 Rear Caliper.jpg

GT350 Painted Calipers.jpg


Pardon the dirty wheels, I have to wait until Friday for the ceramic coating to be fully cured before I can wash the car.

Overall, I'm happy with how they came out despite it being a bit more work than I had anticipated.

Last weekend before the brakes I also did some upgrades to the B&O stereo. I replaced the subwoofer with a Pioneer, stuffed the enclosure with polyfill, and clipped the wire for the center speaker. Over all a nice improvement for under $100. More details here.

Chip
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galaxy

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Bravo! Great write up. And take it from someone who spent what I think is stupid money getting brake calipers painted; yours are just as good from behind the wheel and you’ll appreciate it a lot more.

We did an at-home job on some Brembo’s for my sons S197 car with similar results as yours, but they seem perfect to us, and he has the pride that we did them ourselves.

3CB63EDF-0691-47C5-9DB4-FA384F783B27.jpeg


FA2F8380-1513-4674-A528-7308E9EA4163.jpeg


99CDAF3B-4893-4681-B03D-B006418A7875.jpeg
 

Tank

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Did you hit the rotors with some high grit to remove transferred pad material from the old pads?

What stereo stuff did you do?

Thanks for the post, pics and observations :like:
 
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ChipG

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Did you hit the rotors with some high grit to remove transferred pad material from the old pads?

What stereo stuff did you do?

Thanks for the post, pics and observations :like:

I did not sand the calipers, I just went out and did Power Stop's recommended bedding process.

The stereo stuff was in the last paragraph (and linked):

"Last weekend before the brakes I also did some upgrades to the B&O stereo. I replaced the subwoofer with a Pioneer, stuffed the enclosure with polyfil, and clipped the wire for the center speaker. Overall a nice improvement for under $100. More details here."
 

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I did not sand the calipers, I just went out and did Power Stop's recommended bedding process.

The stereo stuff was in the last paragraph (and linked):

"Last weekend before the brakes I also did some upgrades to the B&O stereo. I replaced the subwoofer with a Pioneer, stuffed the enclosure with polyfil, and clipped the wire for the center speaker. Overall a nice improvement for under $100. More details here."
Guess I should wake fully before trying to comprehend things.... Completely missed that! Thanks.

Edit to add:
Some recommend lightly scuffing up the rotors to remove the old pad material then bedding the brakes again with the new pads. The rationale being different materials on the rotors decreases efficiency. YMMV.
 
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m3incorp

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I notice they rate the difficulty to install at 4 of 5; that means to me, that I would most likely ruin a couple hundred dollars worth trying to get it right. Taking that into consideration, may as well remove the calipers and give the G2 color kits a try....a few times if needed for the price. I don't like that the instructions say some surfaces require wet application and other surfaces require dry application. Plus...they just don't look as good as real painted caliper to me. :) Even if you don't take dissemble the caliper, I think you get more paint coverage than this kit gives. Now if they were super easy to install, I would probably have a change of heart.

 
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526 HRSE

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Red should be reserved for R's.
 
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ChipG

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Red should be reserved for R's.
Nonsense. There are red calipers on all kinds of cars, and painting calipers all kinds of colors is perfectly common - hardly a unique R signature move. I painted the calipers on my '96 Cobra red, too, maybe the R shouldn't copy me :wink: Not to mention they're the exact same brake calipers. I don't have R badges nor do I try to claim it as an R, but I'll paint parts whatever color I like, and I'll be accenting my white/blue car with red (calipers, mirrors, tow hooks along with the existing interior splashes of red). Oh, and I'm gonna use an R splitter, too, because I want more downforce :)
 

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ChipG

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As a follow up on the brake pad, I put the OEM pads back on the car and took it in to a dealer this morning. I showed them this photo:

1620051977039.png


They told me that "technically" I'm still within mileage/time in service window for the brake pad to be warrantied, but they would not look at it or consider anything under warranty because they don't know if there had been a heat event, or it stuck to the rotor, or it was dropped, or whatever. Basically, piss off. My options now are to run it as is, scrap the pads, try another dealer, or try to escalate to Ford. My instincts are to go with the last option. I've done nothing unusual with these brakes, there are only 5k miles on them, no track miles or even particularly hard driving, the other 7 pads are all normal, and I know this car sat for 13 months before I bought it (which I also told the dealer), so anything that happened to the pad before I bought it is on Ford, not me, as well. Thoughts? Who should I contact at Ford to raise a stink?

Chip
 

THX 138

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Nice write up. One item I noticed, though, is that you used anti-seize on the outside of the Caliperfexion studs. You might find it difficult to pull the calipers off the next time you go to install new brake pads. I learned that the hard way... There is VERY little clearance (intentionally) for the calipers to slide on the studs. Anti-seize reduces that clearance even more. After the second time I swapped brake pads for the track, adding a little anti-seize to the stud each time, I found it extremely difficult to slide the calipers off the studs the next time I changed pads. I eventually had to take a rolled-up cloth and clean out the inside of the caliper mounting holes to get the gunk out.

The good news is that the anti-seize isn't needed anyway, though. I've had zero issues sliding the calipers on and off the studs since I stopped using it altogether. :beer:
 
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ChipG

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Nice write up. One item I noticed, though, is that you used anti-seize on the outside of the Caliperfexion studs. You might find it difficult to pull the calipers off the next time you go to install new brake pads. I learned that the hard way... There is VERY little clearance (intentionally) for the calipers to slide on the studs. Anti-seize reduces that clearance even more. After the second time I swapped brake pads for the track, adding a little anti-seize to the stud each time, I found it extremely difficult to slide the calipers off the studs the next time I changed pads. I eventually had to take a rolled-up cloth and clean out the inside of the caliper mounting holes to get the gunk out.

The good news is that the anti-seize isn't needed anyway, though. I've had zero issues sliding the calipers on and off the studs since I stopped using it altogether. :beer:
Good to know. I took the calipers off this weekend to put stock pads back on for my (useless) trip to the dealer. One caliper was a little slow to pull, the other came off fine. I did not re-apply anti-seize so I'll see if they come off more easily when I put the Z26 pads back on.
 

pilotgore

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As a follow up on the brake pad, I put the OEM pads back on the car and took it in to a dealer this morning. I showed them this photo:

1620051977039.png


They told me that "technically" I'm still within mileage/time in service window for the brake pad to be warrantied, but they would not look at it or consider anything under warranty because they don't know if there had been a heat event, or it stuck to the rotor, or it was dropped, or whatever. Basically, piss off. My options now are to run it as is, scrap the pads, try another dealer, or try to escalate to Ford. My instincts are to go with the last option. I've done nothing unusual with these brakes, there are only 5k miles on them, no track miles or even particularly hard driving, the other 7 pads are all normal, and I know this car sat for 13 months before I bought it (which I also told the dealer), so anything that happened to the pad before I bought it is on Ford, not me, as well. Thoughts? Who should I contact at Ford to raise a stink?

Chip
I’ve seen that kind of chipping before on stock and aftermarket pads, and I wouldn’t worry about continuing to use it.

That being said, it absolutely should fall under your short term “consumable” warranty. I’d take it to a different dealer, and if they cause a stink you can always escalate with Ford.

Saying heating caused the issue is complete BS, as that would be covered…. The only defense they could possibly have is that you abused the pad by dropping it on the ground, and even then I would dare them to find an impact mark/damage. At the end of the day, I’m guessing they were just lazy and didn’t want to deal with it.
 

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As a follow up on the brake pad, I put the OEM pads back on the car and took it in to a dealer this morning. I showed them this photo:

1620051977039.png


They told me that "technically" I'm still within mileage/time in service window for the brake pad to be warrantied, but they would not look at it or consider anything under warranty because they don't know if there had been a heat event, or it stuck to the rotor, or it was dropped, or whatever. Basically, piss off. My options now are to run it as is, scrap the pads, try another dealer, or try to escalate to Ford. My instincts are to go with the last option. I've done nothing unusual with these brakes, there are only 5k miles on them, no track miles or even particularly hard driving, the other 7 pads are all normal, and I know this car sat for 13 months before I bought it (which I also told the dealer), so anything that happened to the pad before I bought it is on Ford, not me, as well. Thoughts? Who should I contact at Ford to raise a stink?

Chip
My car was at the dealer a month ago for front brake squeal. With 2,500 miles on the odometer at the time, there was no way I was going to live with that.. hearing it at every stop light, stop sign, parking lot etc. Dealer took it for a drive, confirmed pads needed to be replaced, said there was a hot spot on them but no issues.

Only issue is them still on backorder. I just followed up with them yesterday and they had parts look into it. ETA is June 7th for backordered to be fulfilled.

There should be zero issues with warranty within the 1yr/12k pad warranty. I'd definitely escalate it.
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