Black Beauty saves the day again.

[F Body]

When I had the daily driver Panda MOT'd in May it got an advisory for front disc brake wear
The tester said that he would have failed it had not the pads been so thick

Been working night and day for months now, so got some quotes to get the job done, Days MK £280  Local brake & clutch centre £195+ vat

Bought a set of Mintex ventilated discs including pads from Flea Bay for £66
Had them a few weeks now and wasted a few hours painting them with caliper paint, unfortunately I only had red paint, still it satisfied my inner Chav



The old discs have a minimum thickness of 18.1mm, they were only 15.9mm thick according to my digital caliper
Still not bad because they have lasted nearly 60k miles, Days MK said that 24k miles is about average mileage for them to last



Couldn't get the old discs off, no matter how hard I hit them with a two pound hammer  
So Black Beauty was called for, my home made drum puller
A couple of turns of the centre screw and a gentle tap with hammer and they just fell off, she has to be the most useful tool I've made



The old discs were deeply grooved :



Bringing out my inner Chav



I don't think they look too bad



Took just over two hours, no doubt F Body Management will have them bedded in after another couple of hundred miles shopping, when i get home tomorrow night from work

[art b]

they look good fella....

looks like your a bit of an ebay convert after all...
i cant see any axle stands used with that jack[mr h&s]....

[nick69]

looks like you re-used the hub nut too tut tut

[Andy]

Quoting: nick69

looks like you re-used the hub nut too tut tut

Shouldn't have needed to remove it

Is that one of them fancy all ally jacks there?

[F Body]

Quoting: art b

i cant see any axle stands used with that jack[mr h&s]....

Yes there was an axle stand under the centre of the sub frame, never work without them after a Triumph Spitfire fell on top me many years ago :

(:

Quoting: nick69

looks like you re-used the hub nut too tut tut

Doesn't come off, the discs mount onto the hub

Quoting: Andy

Is that one of them fancy all ally jacks there?

Yep Costco Jobby, I think it was about £80 ?  Lower profile so even gets under the Camaro

[HardRockCamaro]

24k is average life?

My dad had the pads changed on his Focus at 80k miles, and the discs are still going!

[Jamieg285]

Quoting: F Body

A couple of turns of the centre screw and a gentle tap with hammer and they just fell off, she has to be the most useful tool I've made

Most usefull tool I've ever used too.

[philoldsmobile]

Quoting: HardRockCamaro

24k is average life?

the panda is a city car (and a cheap one at that), so its to be expected the brakes will have a shorter average life.. I'd expect a short life on any city cars brakes, as they are constantly on and off..

[EDGE]

Gemmas auto corsa has new front brake pads every 5,000 miles, so, yearly in her case...

and discs every other year, so 10k intervals...

[philoldsmobile]

yeah, auto's are even more punishing... think how often you apply the bakes on the motorway, once every 100 miles if you're driving is up to scratch? how many times in 100 miles of city driving? probably 50 times or more..

[Andy]

Quoting: EDGE

Gemmas auto corsa has new front brake pads every 5,000 miles, so, yearly in her case...

Get out! What sort of cheese are they made off? Shocking that, thinking about it, doing my mileage they would last me about 3-4 months max!

[philoldsmobile]

she drives in london, so in an auto shes probably on the brakes about 50% of the time.. they are never going to last.. MK is a brake killer too, because you're always slowing down from 70..

[art b]

autos have no engine braking like a manual.....

[Incursus]

Quoting: art b

autos have no engine braking like a manual....

Indeed!  I went though a set in 4 years!

Don't know how old they were when I bought the car either...

Disks do need doing though think one of them is a little warped.

[philoldsmobile]

warpage is a major problem for yank cars in MK, the brakes are so small and there are so many roundabouts they always end up running too hot.

one useful trick is to knock it into neutral and use the hand brake at roundabouts, instead of sitting on the brakes in drive, the pads will take heat from the disks while the brakes are applied standing still, and store it leading to higher brake temps on the next application, this cycle continues each roundabout.


this is actualy a reason its almost universal for the hand brake to be on the rear brakes - they are also typically running much cooler than fronts.