TDIDaveNH
Left Lane Coal Roller at Large
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2009
- Location
- North Conway, NH
- TDI
- 1997 Passat TDI x2 1984 Buick Century 4.3 diesel. 2012 X5d 2012 Passat 6-speed
Continuing on, The rear brakes got some overdue love as well...new rotors, bearings, seals, tone rings, MkIV calipers and SS brake hoses from ECS. I cut back the hard line for a nice transition, reflaired it and eliminated the wonky clip on bracket.
The B4 rear caliper brackets by themselves are surprisingly unavailable. Not even Rock Auto had them, unless you buy the inferior cast iron calipers that go with them. All 4 pins were long seized up, I applied heat to 3 and got them out easily but the 1st one I did I had forgotten lessons I learned years ago and tried it cold...it snapped right off. Some heat, a yellow crayon after drilling and tapping and I was able to save it. Blasted and painted with all new pins and boots, they should be good for a while.
The last few times I drove the car before taking it off the road I noticed the front brakes would not release easily...the culprit turned out to be SS braided hose made from Chinesium I presume that were only about a year old. These got swapped out with custom hoses I had made by HEL performance. They also did the shorties by the rear swing axle transition, they do great work and function as they should. All the fittings are stainless AND metric, not 9/16". I also did a few other things and I know I'm forgetting some as well...swapped on a GLX coolant bottle, rerouted fender turn signal wiring and vacuumed out a significant amount of dirt out of the front fender doglegs when the liners were out.
On a somewhat unrelated note I played around with a used 1,500 watt cleaning laser I picked up and it did a nice job on paint and rust on a dismantled AHU that's been squatting on my only engine stand now for years. Well, that's it for now folks, keep those B4's ROLLIN'!!
The B4 rear caliper brackets by themselves are surprisingly unavailable. Not even Rock Auto had them, unless you buy the inferior cast iron calipers that go with them. All 4 pins were long seized up, I applied heat to 3 and got them out easily but the 1st one I did I had forgotten lessons I learned years ago and tried it cold...it snapped right off. Some heat, a yellow crayon after drilling and tapping and I was able to save it. Blasted and painted with all new pins and boots, they should be good for a while.
The last few times I drove the car before taking it off the road I noticed the front brakes would not release easily...the culprit turned out to be SS braided hose made from Chinesium I presume that were only about a year old. These got swapped out with custom hoses I had made by HEL performance. They also did the shorties by the rear swing axle transition, they do great work and function as they should. All the fittings are stainless AND metric, not 9/16". I also did a few other things and I know I'm forgetting some as well...swapped on a GLX coolant bottle, rerouted fender turn signal wiring and vacuumed out a significant amount of dirt out of the front fender doglegs when the liners were out.
On a somewhat unrelated note I played around with a used 1,500 watt cleaning laser I picked up and it did a nice job on paint and rust on a dismantled AHU that's been squatting on my only engine stand now for years. Well, that's it for now folks, keep those B4's ROLLIN'!!
