Brake System Rebuild and Restoration

[Wapiennik]

I thought I would share some pictures with everyone. My braking hasn't been incredible over the last year, so I looked into replacing some components and found it was going to be expensive to replace calipers, so I rebuilt them. Since I saved so much money rebuilding instead of replacing I had extra money to upgrade the brake lines.



This was one of my front rotors. Even though they are fourteen years old, they were still able to be resurfaced with plenty of meat left on them.



Here's my front calipers. Again, fourteen years old, but there isn't anything wrong with them. They just needed some rebuilding and lubing.



I'm lucky enough to have access to a sand blaster at no charge. So I figured instead of rebuilding only, why not spruce up the appearance of them too as those nasty black calipers can be seen through the rims.



After the shop told me the rotors will still in good condition, I took them into the sand blaster and cleaned off the fourteen years of rust that was caked on them. Then I had them resurfaced.



Sand blasted, soaked in brake cleaner, cleaned, and painted. The rear ones are shown here to see how huge a difference the sand blaster and painting them made.



Paint finished drying. Looked like new.



Saving money on rebuilding the calipers gave me some extra money for other parts I might need. I decided to try out the stainless steel braided lines. They look pretty nice. I don't notice any difference with braking, but I feel better knowing they are steel braided though.



It definitely helped the outside appearance of the car I think. Been slowly breaking in my pads over the last two days and it's almost done. Braking feels incredible, or normal considering how it was. I used ATE brake pads this time around, and I'll never buy Duralast ever again.

Thanks to Pelican for all the parts for this project. I only had one snag. I did use a flare nut wrench, but even so, I stripped a nut on one of the brake lines. As luck would have it, it was only the intermediate brake line that went on the right rear brake system between the caliper and the car. Autozone actually had the same exact line for $3.99 I got lucky.

Enjoy the pics.

A note for anyone looking to upgrade to the stainless steel lines.

The lines don't come with the rubber bushing that keeps the front brake lines mounted to the strut. So make sure you remove the rubber grommet from your OEM lines with a razor blade so you can use it on the stainless steel lines.

[Yurick]

Looks like some nice work!

In general, it is not recommended to machine brake rotors on BMW's. You likely just needed to replace the Duralast pads with some reputable brand to improve the braking, but since you did all the other work, you can be proud of your "new" brake system.

[Wapiennik]

Originally Posted by Yurick

You likely just needed to replace the Duralast pads with some reputable brand to improve the braking...

Ya, they were crap. I used ATE this time around and I can already feel the difference. I resurfaced them because they were squeaking, and I could barely feel some grooves.

[Wapiennik]

Finished ATE's recommended brake in procedure and the brakes/calipers are awesome. Had one little hick up. I was hitting little bumps and I had a really strange light come on in my instrument cluster, then it would go off. I had never seen it before, and spent two hours looking for my owners manual to find out what it was. Turned out to be the brake pad wear sensor. I replaced both of them during this rebuild, but I didn't push the front one in far enough, so it was barely connected. All is good now.

[mikecgolf]

What is the reason for the recomendation of not resurfacing or turning BMW rotors?

Thanks
mc

[Yurick]

Mike,
Tolerance is the typical reason. You can generally go through two sets of brake pads on the rotors in a BMW. I think you can do more than that in other cars.