DIY: Brake Rotor and Pad Replacement

[Quicksilver77]

Hello all! I thought I would post a little do it yourself thread on completing a rotor and pad swap on a late model 930. I know it is remedial for the majority of you, but it was everyone's first time once, and I know that I learned A LOT when I did my first corner! Special thanks to all that helped with getting me through it!
These DIY's were SUPER helpful when I had my 996 and was spending a lot of time on RennTech getting the help that I needed to work on that thing!
Feel free to chime in and add suggestions or corrections for that matter, as I am no expert, nor even all that mechanically inclined!

Step 1:
Get the car in the air, I decided to lift the entire car and put it on jack stands, though you could lift a corner at a time should you like. Don't forget to break the lug nuts loose before the wheel is off the ground.



Step 2:
Remove the wheel.


Step 3:
Use a screwdriver to push the pads away from the rotor to allow easy removal. I compressed the pistons completely to ease the install of the new pads against the new rotor.


Step 4:
Remove old brake pads. To accomplish this you must access the pads by getting under the butterfly spring. The spring is opened by compressing the center of the spring with channel locks, pliers, or in my case a set of vise grips. Forgive the picture blur. I'm sure you get the idea!


Once the spring is hinged out of the way you can slide out the old pads.




Step 5:
Un-anchor the brake caliper. There are two large allen bolts which anchor the caliper to the spindle these are denoted by the arrows in the picture below. No bagging on the picture quality! These things were on TIGHT!!! Think beaker bar!


Step 6:
Pull the caliper out of the way, you may want to completely remove the caliper from the car and take to opportunity to thoroughly clean, or you can be lazy like me and push it out of the way, resting it on something, being careful not to crimp or damage the hard brake lines.

Step 7:
Create a bearing dust cover pulling tool. (You have to love home made tools, though I must give all credit to A930Rocket who shared his design)

(The parts needed)

[Quicksilver77]

Step 8:
Remove the bearing dust cover. Thread a nut, about a lug bolt length, up your extraction bolt and slide you washers against the nut. Then slip the extraction bolt through the hole drilled in your plate. Situate the plate across three or more of the lugs and thread the bolt into the dust cover. Then, holding the extraction bolt stationary, tighten the nut against the washers/plate until the dust cover slips from the hub.

(Tool in use)

(Dust cover removed)

Step 9:
Remove the bearing preload nut from the spindle. Pass a long 6mm allen key through the holes in your alloy lug carrier and engage the allen key into the pinch bolt on the preload nut as shown.



Loosen the pinch bolt and then rotate the rotor/hub/allen key counter clockwise with the allen key engaged to loosen the preload nut; half a rotation is all mine needed to loosen the nut enough to be able to remove it the rest of the way by hand.


Step 10:
Remove the rotor and alloy carrier. With the preload nut removed, the rotor and carrier can be gently slid off of the spindle. Take care not to mar or damage the keyway or the threads on the spindle.


Optional: at this point I decided to remove the dust shield, eventually I will be running tubing for brake cooling, so I removed the three small bolts holding the shield on and slid it off of the spindle as well.


Step 11:
Separate the rotor from the carrier. There are 5 bolts and nuts connecting the rotor and carrier. Remove the 5 bolts and nuts. This will cause the rotor and carrier to separate.


Then clean up your goods. Slide the carrier into the new rotor and bolt them together.


Repack your bearings, slip the rotor and carrier back onto the spindle, hand tighten the preload nut and then engage the allen key into the pinch bolt of the preload nut. Rotate the system clockwise to desired bearing preload, i.e. no binding or tightness as well as no play. When you are happy with this adjustment, tighten the pinch bolt and re-install the dust cover. I used a hammer and a piece of wood for this task, which required the use of both hands, which is why there is no picture.

Back track the remaining steps, install the new brake pads once the caliper is re-anchored, and you will have yourself a new rotor and pads on one of the front corners!


Again, thanks for all of the help I have received on this forum, you all are life savers!

All the best!
-Sean

[A930Rocket]

Great write up!

We should have a sticky at the top on how to do things to the 930.