The mid-rise ramp I had ordered earlier in the year arrived a couple of weeks ago, this has made me very happy! No more jacking up and axle stands - and should make this next job much easier.
On the list to do;
- Remove all calipers and get them rebuilt
- Replace all brake discs
- Replace all brake pads
- Replace all flexi lines
- Replace any corroded hard lines
- Replace brake fluid
It did cross my mind to just get a big brake kit instead of rebuilding the OEM calipers. However, I figured I don't even know how good/bad these brakes are, I may as well use them first, then decide if an upgrade is necesary later on. And from what I've read - they're supposedly pretty good.
The car had been off the road for a good many years before it came in to my hands, and from the state of the braking system - this was very clear.
This is the first time I've had to deal with brake lines, all I can say is that I cannot stress the importance of using a flared spanner enough - I learnt the hard way.
I decided to send the calipers off to get professionally rebuilt as they were in a pretty bad way. I ended up sending them to Bigg Red in the UK. This ended up being a great decision as they came back promptly, and looked absolutely amazing.
Far exceeded my expectations of what was achievable with them. I was half expecting a call saying they are too far gone!
I replaced all the flexi lines with some nice braided lines, fitted some highly rated StopTech discs along with Hawk Performance pads.
The only issue I had along the way was the front left hard line that ran from the wheel well through to the engine bay. The end where it attaches to the flexi line had corroded pretty bad, so I opted to replace this whole section of pipe. This proved more difficult when I found out that my very early JDM model has a different pipe to pretty much every other RX7 model. Sourcing a new or used one proved unsuccessful.
Time to learn another new skill - flaring and bending some brake line!
After some practicing with a flaring tool, I felt ready. To be honest, I found the flaring the easiest part, bending and shaping the pipe to match the original pipe was far more difficult. But we got there.
All done - and looking fab!