success
last night was great. i wasn't planning on doing any work but all of our friends that we were going to meet with are sick. once i got out there, the first thing i realized is that i had the caliper brackets on the wrong side. it's amazing how much easier something is when you have some pictures of the final product. once i swapped the brackets, the caliper lined up right where it should be. i also found a great set of directions and notes here. they put on the same kit that i have and posted the directions with all of their notes. they have a great section on packing the bearings and rotor and then how to fit it all on the spindle.
my main problem was that i wasn't putting the grease seal on properly (those directions were omitted from the ones i had). so i packed the rotor up with grease, dropped in my pre-packed bearings, pounded in the grease seal and i was ready to rock and roll. took me a little while to get the rotor on and figure out exactly how far to tighten down the clamp nut and get it adjusted properly. luckily, rob and dave's directions went into great detail in this area too. once i got the rotor on, i slipped the caliper on and mounted it. there is a little problem in that the inner side of the rotor rubs on the inner brake pad. i'm trying to figure out if i put the rotor on too far or what. the last item of the night is that i pressed in the bearing races for the passenger's side.
i'm hoping to get out of work a little early today and slap that other rotor and caliper on before tonight. i have a mechanic friend that's coming over to help me with the rear gland nuts and also take a look at why my car won't idle. so hopefully we'll get everything ironed out this weekend. here is the new disc and caliper in all it's glory.
aren't they pretty?
here's a more straight-on shot.
the only thing left of this side (besides getting the rotor not to rub) is to bend the new brake line and hook it into the caliper.
2 comments:
sweet. I think this just inspired me to put disc brakes on my bug. That is, when I do finally get to it in the garage. Was the disc brake kit reasonably priced?
This is my bug. It used to look pretty good.
the brake kit was very reasonable at $320. i get all my stuff from aircooled.net (see link on right). they are a little place in UT, but they have good service and prices. my kit came with everything except bearing grease and brake fluid. it even came with new stainless steel hoses. i just looked on their site and the standard beetle kits are here. i don't remember what year you have. the linkpin kits are considerable more expensive than the balljoint kits. i'm sure you can find cheaper kits but be careful about what parts they use and what they come with. i saw a lot of cheaper kits that used rebuilt calipers and didn't come with all the bearings and hoses like this kit. the aircooled.net kits are all brand new items and they come with everything. the standard beetle kits even come with new spindles.
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