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Very nice work. Keep it up. LOVE TO see your wife is involved.
She has always been very supportive with our cars. She won't own a car unless it "hugs" her and feels sporty. Ironically most new cars coming out that claim are "sports cars" once she sits in them, she hates em. Toss her in the new c7 corvette, and she immediately felt like a sports car. Put her in the new Jag, all i got was a "meh" out of her. And she is not biased towards corvettes being the best sports cars she just likes what she likes heheh.
Assembling the Rear Calipers De-glazed and painted rear calipers rebuilt. I know that no-one will ever see the internals, but for my own piece of mine I've protected them and refurbished them with new pistons so that's all that matters right?
Getting ready to De-glaze, you don't need to go crazy with this, it's mainly just to smooth out the surface, you do not want to remove any surface so I only de-glazed for roughly 15 seconds per cylinder on medium to low speed. I lubricated the pads with brake fluid and cleaned off the pads after every cylinder.<br/>
Left unpolished, right polished, you can see that i'm not going for perfection just removing the big bulk but it's a noticeable difference.
this is the stuff you are trying to get rid of
This is the stuff you are trying to get rid of.
And there it is cleaned up (for the most part) the staining is there but it's smooth to the touch now instead of rough.
Getting ready to clean these up
Left unpolished, Right polished, i just used a buffing cylinder in my drill from harbor freight ($2.99) cloth and meguiars wheel / aluminum polish.
It's a wonder what some polish can do.
Left polished, right not polished
I masked and painted these more for protection than anything else. I also put new seals on them
The o-rings are very easy to put in, just lube them up with brake fluid and press them in with your fingers.
I did this a little backwards, Put this dust shield in Last, just showing how it can press in, i ended up pulling it out after this.
New Cylinders!
The cylinder just slides in with some firm pressure, I lubed up the cylinder and piston with brake fluid before doing so.
The hardest part honestly was putting this bugger together. This is why I had to remove the dust shield i put in earlier.
Tried doing putting the two collars together while on the caliper...it's a pain in the ***, it can be done but i opted to pull the dust shield off and assemble off the caliper.
All put together
I also skipped a step here figuring out how to put it together and had to remove it yet again. If you try to put the actual pad contact in through the dust shield you will have a hell of a time doing so. I had to remove it and do put it in on the table.
Great info! I'll be venturing down this road shortly. I've got a spare set of calipers to practice on. You know, just in case.
Did you buy a rebuild kit or did you get the parts separately?
Great info! I'll be venturing down this road shortly. I've got a spare set of calipers to practice on. You know, just in case.
Did you buy a rebuild kit or did you get the parts separately?
They used to make an entire rebuild kit for the rears but it was discontinued.
Front Caliper Pistons Continued The front pistons took about 4 tries to do them properly
I must have had to remove the pistons 4 times while figuring this out, don't do the same mistake and just follow this, It turns the pistons into a 15 minute job vs the 1 hour it took me.
At first I thought i would put the dust boots into the cylinders first and then slide the pistons in. This just was not going to happen for me without tearing the boots. I'm sure it could be done, but I did not feel comfortable doing it this way. So I removed the dust boots.
I then used WD40 on the dust boot and slid it over the top of the piston down to the bottom. Leaving about 1/4" worth of piston showing on the inside of the boot. At this time you can lubricate the Cylinder and Piston with Brake fluid to help make things easier.
You then just work the dust boot into the cylinder grooves. It did not require any special tools just my fingers and patience. With the WD40 they will just pop into place, just takes a little work. You will notice my pistons are just hanging there, that is fine. Once the shields are on you can continue with the next step, just line up the pistons into the cylinders and press them in to get them started.
Since I did not have the right caliper tool to compress the pistons I came up with this beautiful technique. I used a thick paint stir stick, Socket, Rubber Mallet. Keep in mind you DO NOT need to hammer like you are driving a nail to put the pistons in. I gently tapped each one into place, and bit by bit alternating between cylinders so they went down together they went in just fine.
Eventually when the piston bottoms out on the cylinder the top portions of the shield will just pop into place. And Viola! You are done. Just repeat for the other side.
I love the fact that everything is a candidate for repair vice replace.
It's definitely easier to just put brand new stuff on. But also VERY expensive and unnecessary in many cases. If it's a wear and tear item then yeah i'll buy brand new such as my rebuild kit for the calipers and bushings etc. I grew up watching my dad restore cars, and having "original parts" was always important to us. Not just the same type of part, but the actual part that came on the car. Some people don't care, i love it Sometimes retaining originality is not possible but whenever possible I like to do it.
You will notice i'm not a shop either, everything I'm doing is very much attainable by anyone with the drive to do so. Most every tool can be rented from a local autoparts store if you don't want to purchase them as well...
My main goal is to show that we CAN and SHOULD be able to refurbish almost any part on these cars. Rock auto is a blessing in disguise for replacing the wear and tear parts fyi.
They are Energy Suspension, they make them in red or black your choice.
I already had my front swaybar kit from them i did last year, so i purchased the rest which is this kit.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161493963086?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
The vendor sent it out extremely fast i'd buy from them again and it was the cheapest price i could find at the time for that particular kit.
Because my car is a Z07 so it comes with a 30MM front swaybar and a 24MM rear swaybar.
This chart is a great resource, find your year and suspension code then look for your swaybar size.. http://vettenet.org/susp_chart.html You can find your codes on a white sticker under your center console armrest
I went to Energy Suspension's website and looked up that p/n and it says it's applicable to every c4 except for '96. Are the bushings different for that one year or is that just a glitch in their system?
I went to Energy Suspension's website and looked up that p/n and it says it's applicable to every c4 except for '96. Are the bushings different for that one year or is that just a glitch in their system?
That particular kit does not include the Swaybar bushings, so yes, it is a universal kit for all C4's.
Then go to their Sway bar kits, then you can get the Part # for the right size. I think all C4's were 24mm rear sway bar, but i could very much be mistaken. I unfortunately don't know what a stock corvette swaybar size is.
04-28-2015, 05:52 PM
