It was time for front pads and rotors on my GTS. Ordered up the parts and planned to do the job last Sunday afternoon; just finished the installation today (still need to do a full system bleed with my one-man Motive bleeder. EDIT: done now and brakes are bedded in...all good).
The left side was a piece of cake...took all of 15 minutes once the wheel was off. The right side turned into a nightmare. A damping pad was fused with rust to the piston bore on the inboard side of the caliper...no amount a cajoling would free it, and local dealer couldn't get an OEM rebuild kit that included piston (seals only) so I opted for a new caliper. Ordered it on Monday and it arrived Friday.
Today, put on the new rotor, swapped in the new caliper, and proceeded to bolt the brake line bracket to the upright...and the bolt snapped off. Crikey...spent the next two hours looking for the right sized helicoil on a statutory holiday when half the stores were closed. Finally found one, drilled out the broken bolt, tapped the upright for the helicoil. Finally got the right side brake system bolted up tight 6 hours after starting.
Dunno if this was just bad luck...or the fact the car has 82000 km (almost unheard of mileage for a 2011 911) and is winter driven has contributed to the problem. There's no salt used on these roads in the winter, but that damper was seriously rusted in the bore. The bolt that snapped is literally 3 inches from where the rusted damper was located...so maybe a coincidence, maybe not. Anyway...all fixed now, with all OEM parts, as good as new. As a matter of course now I'll make a habit of popping out the pads and checking the calipers and dampers whenever I have the wheels off.
This is wasn't a cheap DIY task...but well worth the effort of doing it myself and getting a good handle on the braking system on a centrelock GTS.
I snapped the same bolt on my Cayman.
Dealer had to tap it and use a bigger bolt. 90K km, not winter driven.
These issues can be avoided by installing the Tarret Engineering brake stud kit.
I knew about the Tarret caliper stud kits, but wasn't aware they had studs for brake line brackets as well. Now that one M6 bolt has been replaced by a 1/4" or 3/16 helicoil (not sure, will have to check the packaging) the standard brake line stud won't work on that corner (I'll check with Tarret to see whether they have other sizes). Still, would be worthwhile replacing the other three...and the caliper studs would also be a good upgrade. Thanks for the tip.
:cheers:
