I've been slacking on posting this update, but front and rear brakes have been done for awhile (so please excuse the dust, and rust transfer from my wheels):
I went with the "ugly" approach for the parking brake cable by unhooking it from the torsion beam clips; routing it up and over. It works perfectly, and requires no drilling into the caliper or remounting of the cable lever. Doing this however, you will need to unhook the two cables from hangers underneath the body about 3/4 of the way back. Here is the right side hanger:
I just completely removed that one. The cable (black with gray stripe) stays where it moved to above perfectly, and not in the way of anything. As for the left side:
I moved the hanger slightly to secure the cable away from the exhaust. Although it never touched it hanging freely, its just a small amount of insurance.
Here was my full parts list, any non-listed parts were cleaned and reused:
- Front Calipers (312mm Non-PP GTI) = $52.50/each used with 36k miles from Auto Haas
- Rear Calipers (272mm Non-PP GTI) = $55/ea used with 36k miles from Auto Haas
- VK-1347F Front Brake Lines = $60 from Techna-Fit
- VK-1327R Rear Brake Lines at 16.5" Overall Length and 10mm Banjos¹ = $55 from Techna-Fit
- 4x N90948802 Front Caliper Mounting Bolts²
- 4x N91194501 Rear Caliper Mounting Bolts²
- 5Q0615611P Left Rear 272mm Torsion Beam Dust Shield
- 5Q0615612P Right Rear 272mm Torsion Beam Dust Shield
- 2x WHT007150³ Rear Wheel Axle Bolts (This and everything else below I bought from FCP Euro.)
- TRW Ultra Ceramic TXC1760 Front Pads*
- TRW Ultra Ceramic TXC1779 Rear Pads*
- Zimmermann 100330020 Zinc Coated Front Rotors
- Zimmermann 600324120 Zinc Coated Rear Rotors
- 4x N10648301 Rotor Set Screws
- 2x B0007501MDSP DOT 4 Class 6 500mL Brake Fluid
¹Having a 16.5" Overall Length specified is very important. The PP brakes use 12mm Banjos.
²I had to find a dealership parts department open on a Saturday as
https://parts.vw.com/ listed the incorrect ones. The ones listed for the GTI are double the length.
³These are torqued to 200nm+180°.
*I'm happy with these pads. Semi-Mets would definitely bite better, but these are better than stock and barely make dust. They took about 600mi to bed. Here is a blog post about them:
https://blog.fcpeuro.com/trw-ultra-ceramic-brake-pads-the-ceramic-pad-you-need-to-try
Make sure to have blue threadlocker,
rubber safe brake lubricant, and some quality anti-seize on hand. Also, if you're going to do this yourself, bookmark these links:
https://blog.fcpeuro.com/the-definitive-guide-to-mk7-volkswagen-gti-brakes and
https://bit.ly/3ey7lEz
This was also one of the best purchases I made:
https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/audi-vw-jack-pad-adapter-powerflex-pf31-661