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Stainless steel brake upgrade

2K views 4 replies 3 participants last post by  roboden 
#1 ·
anyone done this ?



Each kit includes Stainless Steel Brakes stock-replacement Turbo-Slotted rotors, high-performance low-dust carbon fiber brake pads, and any necessary pad or caliper mounting hardware.

I have just over 47,000 on my truck right now - Around what mileage did you have your brakes worked on ... ?
 
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#2 ·
I like these Pads & Rotors!!!

I really like this setup...especially the idea of no or little brake dust...this is a PITA..on your rims for cleanin...I'm gonna look into these..I do my brakes myself and check them every tire rotate change (3000 miles)...I have 42,000 on mine ...I have adjusted the rears and replaced the front once...Piece of Cake!!!;)
 
#3 ·
I'm getting ready to do something similar on a 1995 2500hd v-10. I ordered up a set of cross-drilled rotors, rebuilt calipers, kevlar pads and hoses.

I got 30K out of the first set of padds in front, then at 60k dropped in another set in front , and did the rear drums.

At 90 k I got a flat on the front passenger side, and had to break off a stud to swap in the spare(the dealer techs only know how to use pnumatic tools). When I had the stud replaced (dealer again - for the last time) the did everything 'on the truck', and warped the rotor.

Needless to say their excuse was simple mileage, not the shortcut stud replacement. So.........

I pulled and turned the rotors once, but after 6 months the wobble came back on the same side. Checked entire front end out, and even checked wheel runout with a dial indicator - all in spec. Checked the rotor and its warped again.

Decided since I'm in here this will be the last time, and oped to do everything the right way. Even thought about going to the post 98 caliper setup, but do not have time for research - summer trips comming up and I need reliable brakes again.

Heard nothing but 'good' about this upgrade, so lets see what happens.

Rob
 
#5 ·
:cool: :cool:

Done.....

Quite the exercise. I did not have a chance to review Steve Belt's comments on the 4850 lbs axle rotor disassembly, but it was not unexpected that it was quite an effort.

First the short story - I installed the PowerStop setup for my truck - 1995 ram 2500hd (8800 gvw) 4x4 with the V-10.

This stuff is nice - and the end result is better than expected !!!

I got the parts from WWW.BRAKECO.COM (Mark) and the service was fine - just takes a week to ship 90 lbs of rotors and calipers from the west coast to the east coast.

Phone 888-428-7278

Special note - there are different parts for 2 or 4 wheel drive, rear or all wheel ABS, 8800 gvw, and so on, so know your truck !!!

Powerstop cross drilled rotors - AR8626R/L (Right and Left)
Matched rebuilt caliper set with 911 (kevlar) pads pre-loaded
4246021/2 (right and left)
core charge is hefty (45.00 each) so don't bang them around
I also ordered new lines(stock was all that was available)

Right side brake line HB87060
Left Side brake line I did not use - part HB87073 - did not have the frame clamp at the hard line end, but it would have fit ok. Ihad Mark check the numbers, and they are correct, so I'm forced into going back to the dealer for that one.

Now the fun. Being 'serious shop deprived', and wanting to have this done correctly, I enticed my hobby partner into helping me on this. Karl is an 18 wheeler mechanic, working for a firm with nearly 200 tractors and trailers of various types, so he has some signifigent iron in his tool box, plus some interesting experiences to draw upon. Then of course he also has keys to the truck shop as most foremen do, so thats where we did this.

Put the truck on the floor jacks, and pulled the wheels. Immediately aired off everything that I could reach and squirted all fittings, nuts, and bolts with ez-off. Next, laid out all the parts organized by left and right side( I had already done a fairly close inspection of the parts upon arrival).

Started on the right(Passenger) side.

Pulled the calipers and set them on a milk crate to as not to damage the hoses, even though I had new ones. Be carefull - the ABS sonnet ring sensor wires travel thru this also!!!

Stared at the huge nut on the axle stub, and realized it had to come off to get to the rotor. I forget the exact size, but we wound up hitting the 'large' shop tools for that one. Pulled the cotter pin, marked the spline and axle stub with some white out just in case it was keyed, put a 1/2 impact on it with @ 175 psi in it, and the nut slowly came free, then spun off.

There it sat....nothing moved. Tried a simple pull by hand and realized it was time for a serious puller. Back to the 'large' shop tools again. Karl Came up with a three finger puller that fit the axle flange perfect, and dialed the shaft off the spline (used the impact again).... but slowly. We knew there was a seal in the back and could 'feel' it disengage. Then the funny 'clicks' which were the bearing rollers falling out of the nylon retainer cage(had them replaced at 90K).

OK, so now this rotor/axle stub is sitting on the bench, on a pair of 2x4's. First. reset the roller bearings, - carefully they are tapered and should only fit one way and the nylon cage seems a bit flimsy. Next, clean everything - again carefully but do not use any cleaning fluids unless they will not harm the nylon and/or seal materials, cause the seal is under the outer bearing race (shoot the engineer on that one). Then, stared at those 8 studs that had to come out.

Press out the studs the hard way (brass hammer and brass drift on a set of doubled sacrificial nuts) and cleaned them off on a soft wire wheel. Discard old rotor - looks like we're finally ready to put things back together now. Tie wrapped a lint free shop wrag around race/bearing to keep things clean.

Applied lithium grease to all the studs and proceeded to reset them. The studs actually fit through the rotor and 'lock' into the stub axle, so keeping everything aligned on the first 2 studs to reseat is a 2 man job - to set up the press to do this would have meant tearing down a 'money' job, so that's why we did not use it.

Cleaned bearing, race, and seal rim again, and repacked bearing. Loaded the assembly onto the spline using the white out alignment dots, and placed the original large impact socket used to pull the spline nut over the spline and used the brass hammer to get the stub on far enough to where the spline nut and washer could be safely used to draw the assembly back on. to do this we used a 1/2 rachet, in order to mane sure we could seat the seal case properly.

Dialed this down till tight. Checked all the manuals we had, and no one had the tourque specs so.. we had to guestimate this as a mating fit with 200 lbs on it - we even check the other side, but could not get a reading on the click wrench backwards, and my original anvil/long arm wrench as back at my shop. Felt good, with the small amount of drag attributed to the newly packed bearings, and it was not much tighter (few inch lbs) than the other side, so we had a warm soft fuzzy feeling on that one.

Ok rotor is on, lets do the caliper/line replacement. Cleaned the caliper rails and lithum greased them. The calipers came with siliconed mounting bolts, and boots, so we did not have to do that. They also come with both the copper banjo washers for the brake line. Slid the calipers into place and dialed to 38 ft/lbs per book.

Pulled the right brake line off the old caliper, then did the frame hard line disconnect. Pulled the frame attach bold, and the axle attach loom bolt, and found the ABS sensor wire was passed thru the brake line assembly. Cut the old brake line (almost a mistake) and pulled it after making sure new one was exact match.

Mounted new line to axle loom, and frame, and realized the ABS sensor wire MUST be routed thru brake line just like old one. No problem - just check on inner fender well and there is the plug - be carefull the wheel side of the plug actually mounts to a 'slide off' clip, but after that its easy to pull it down, route it properly and reconnect it.

Ok, all the lines are connected to the right side, so we did the left side. Went a lot faster since all the tools were out. Until the left brake line fiasco was discovered. Luckilly(?) we had already disconnected the ABS wiring the correct way, even though its a lot more crowded on the driver fender. So that meant we did NOT cut the old line which we had to reuse.

So now we have it all installed, and started loading fluid (DOT3) I had figured 2 new caliper cylinders, and lines to refill, so I had 2 quarts on hand. Used the old fashioned 2 man 'pump 'er up' sustem instead of a power bleeder - its easier to keep track of the fluid level in the master cylinder, and I did not want to have any problems with the fluid check light sensor. This actually went quite well, and took only about 15 mins to double bleed both sides.

Checked for leaks - looked ok, so we put wheels back on - torqued to 140 ft/lbs three times because of remounting all the studs.

Spun around the truck lot twice, 'gingerly' using brakes, and pulled in for a quick inspection - looked good so I toured the lot again a couple more times, and used the brakes a bit more liberally. Pulled back in and checked everything and retorqued wheels - almost all took a little more play up till wrench clicked.

Spun thru the country side for about 10 miles (no, everything on the east coast is not all suburbia - yet) and tried brakes a few times. By the end of the tour they felt pretty good, and I pulled into the shop for a hard look.

1) no leaks
2) rotors and pads were seating nicely, clean smooth rotors
3) no fluid loss
4) double re-bleed both sides again just to be sure - no air at all.
5) check lug nuts again - some still taking up just a skoosh

Cleaned up, and had look at the clock - about 6 hours end to end.

Notes - the chiltons manual is worthless - it would not even get the fire started that night, cause the paper is to wet.

The Motors Manual had better pictures, but not enough data on this specific axle.

Next time get the DC Shop Manual (on my to do list, as this truck is at the 100k mark and going thru the 'feed me parts' cycle).

Sunday, the day after. Cleaned and washed truck throughly. Checked brake fluid - ok, and lug nuts - ok.

Today - Monday. Checked fluid - OK, checked lugs, OK, Checked for leaks - none (enough of this checking daily, will do weekly for a month)

All and all this is NOT a shade tree mechanic job. It took some serious tools to do the R&R work on the Rotors in particular, and you would hate to loose one of those roller bearings in the grass - just that could spoil your whole afternoon, much less warping a seal cover, or stripping/mashing a stud.

But - the results are great. Smooth, steady breaking for the first 300 to 500 miles is reccomended by the parts sheets for correct seating and break in, but even now, its a whole new world. Less effort, and no more 'wobble wheel' from the warped rotor.

I'll check with the dealer on the left brake line, and replace that in the near future. That will be cake compared to the rest of this.
 
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