These projects never seem to start as a project; they start as a simple, quickish job, but then soon spiral into many related & convoluted jobs.
Plagued by the return of the squealy brakes and frustrated by the stock levels of service parts for my front Brakes calipers, I figured seeing as the summer is largely a wash-out, I’d take the car off the road for “a few days” to replace the front calipers with new, then at my leisure over the winter, tackle the rears.
How hard can that be?
Replace Front Brake Calipers & discs
After quite a bit of research, I came to the conclusion that due to the front CP5200’s long being a discontinued product, I’d definitely replace those. The rear CP5211’s are still made today and service kits are bountiful. I had already bought a service kit for the rears, just not got round to fitting them.
So.. simple job. Replace the front calipers, then service the rears over the winter- no rush.
I eventually decided on a kit from Reyland Motorsport. The new front CP9200 were an (almost) direct replacement for the discontinued CP5200, and also allowed for me to run the original 16″ wheels should I want to. The calipers wouldn’t work with the OEM discs I had, so I opted for their 315mm 2 part black curved groove discs. A slightly larger disc than I had before.
The kit came with everything I needed, including new mounting brackets and shiny new stainless bolts etc.
It wasn’t long before they were fitted and I stood back to admire the new sexy front calipers.
What I immediately noticed, is the difference in colour now between the “old” rear ones and the new front ones. The rears had been painted bright red some time ago, and now clearly are a brighter red than the fronts.
Rear Brake Calipers overhaul
With the weather still crappy, I thought I’d bring forward my plans and sort out the rears now. While it’s true the rear CP5211 are still made today, annoyingly they only come in black – so replacing with new red ones wasn’t an option.
I already had the service kit (seals & pistons) for the rear calipers, so figured I’d replace the rear discs too.
Replace rear Brake Discs
I soon found out my old rear discs were discontinued. The 304mm replacements were now drilled and annoyingly no longer come with a black “bell”. I then had a surreal conversation with Motaclan who told me they don’t supply them in black anymore as they get scratched in transit. So they supply them painted in silver.
Knowing that silver bells on the rear and black bells on the front would also irritate me, I decided to paint them black.
The irony in all this is, that the silver set I received were scratched, showing the black paint beneath them 🙂
Colour changing rear Brake Calipers
I did consider having the rear calipers powder-coated, but no one I spoke to could guarantee an exact colour match for the new AP reds on the front. So, after using a colour swatch chart to identify the colour, I had some 2k paint made up colour matched to the fronts (RAL 3001), stripped them, painted them, sanded back the logo, and then applied some heat resistant lacquer.
New seals, new pistons, new discs, new pads, new shiny bolts, shiny split pins.. it all went back on the car. It was all going so well, until..
Seized brake bleed nipple
No matter how hard we tried, we could not properly bleed the brakes- there was excess pedal movement I just wasn’t happy with. I knew why, 2 out of the 4 rear bleed nipples were seized (one on each side) – so after some brute force, 1 came out, and the other one.. it sheared off.
So that 1 caliper was sent off to Brake Caliper Refurbs, who with some witchcraft removed the snapped nipple and sent it back to me in just a couple of days.
I’m pleased to say that all my bleed nipples are new now and have rubber caps protecting them.
The final result, admittedly wasn’t quick, simple or cheap, but it looks great, brakes have never been so sharp, no squeal anymore and I can rest knowing they are future proof.
