P1020508 Date: 11/05/05 This work guide details the upgrading of a HR drum brake front end to a HR disc brake front end. To perform this upgrade the parts you will need are:

* Disc brake stub axles (2, one from each side)

* Disc brake callipers (2, one from each side)

* New disc brake pads (4, 2 for each calliper)

* Solid brake line and flexible brake line from calliper to fitting where the drum brake flexible line ran from (Not completely necessary but less chance of the line getting “pinched” on the road by any of the suspension)

* Brake booster (VH40)

* Copper brake line from booster to master cylinder

* Steel brake line from booster to junction box (Not completely necessary if you carefully bend the current steel one and mount the booster well back like I have)

* Brake master cylinder (to suit disc brakes)

* Rear brake cylinders (disc brake HRs use different cylinders on the rear to the drum brake setup)

* Rear brake shoes (to suit disc brake front end and different rear cylinder pins from new cylinders)
P1020509 Date: 11/05/05 Pictured is the disc brake master cylinder, as you can see they are usually well marked as “Disc Brake” whereas the original and standard brake master cylinders are just marked as “Brake”.
P1020510 Date: 11/05/05 These are the callipers, if you have gotten good ones like I was supplied you won’t need to have them reconditioned, if you do need or want to recondition them then please refer to my work guide on that job.
P1020511 Date: 11/05/05 This is the front of one of the assembled disc brake hubs, if your rotors are in bad condition then new ones are only cheap if you buy something like Protex, or more expensive if you go for the DBA product, either way they are both excellent (I used Protex on mine due to monetary constraints and have had no problems). If you do get new rotors please refer to my work guide for that job. The rotors pictured only have a little surface rust, a short drive will clean them right up, I was lucky to purchase a recently reconditioned setup.
P1020512 Date: 11/05/05 The rear of the assembled disc brake hub pictured above shows the disc brake stub that will fit in the place of the standard drum brake stub. This is a straight bolt in with no alterations required.
P1020513 Date: 11/05/05 The brake booster, required is a VH40 although I’m not sure if there is much difference between a VH40 and a VH44, either way you will need a booster for this job.
P1020514 Date: 11/05/05 The rear brake shoes. The disc brake rear drum brake shoes are different to the standard 4 wheel drum rear brake shoes in that the standard shoes have an extra cut out (the difference is shown later in this guide) where the cylinder pins fit into, the disc brake rear cylinder pins are flat and so don’t slide into any such groove. If you are willing you can modify the standard shoes by welding up the cut out and grinding it off flat. Considering though that you can still buy these shoes over the counter I can’t see any reason to stuff around.
P1020826 Date: 11/05/05 Before starting on the car loosen all the wheel nuts and then jack the whole car up, support it with stands or blocks and then you can remove the wheels. Pictured is the wife’s car with this all done, it is now ready for me to begin work on.
P1020826a Date: 11/05/05 Pictured is a close look at how I’ve supported the front of the car. By chocking it up directly under the shock absorber I have made it easier to remove the stub axle and there is now no danger that when the stub axle is removed that it will fly apart.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
You must support it as I have shown in the image above, with the blocks under the lower wishbone, if you support it further back under the cross member then when you release the stub axle you’ll likely be wearing some high velocity automotive components (in all seriousness the shock absorber should hold it all together though hopefully) and taking a quick trip to hospital to have them removed from your skull or chest. Take this as a warning to make sure it is supported properly before undoing anything.
P1020827 Date: 11/05/05 This is a look at one of the drums before the job is started. I had no end of trouble with these front drums, the car originally had this set when we bought it and they were fine but we decided to get them machined so they’d be perfect for the wife. Unfortunately the morons who machined it screwed it up and machined it out of round, and then when they machined it again to “fix” it they still didn’t get it right and could take no more metal off when done. Ever since then I’ve had to re-adjust the brakes every two or three weeks (for 8 years) because they never held adjustment due to slight vibration. That’s a good enough reason to fit discs I think, if I ever met the machinist who did the job on the drums…I was a machinist myself at the time, it only take a few minutes to clock something up to machine it, I guess that was too much work…
P1020828 Date: 11/05/05 With the drum taken off we are ready to begin. To remove the drum simply slide it off by hand, if it is too tight you can sometimes jimmy it with a flat bladed screwdriver under the lip on either side, failing that you will have to try and release it through the adjustment hole on the rear.
P1020829 Date: 11/05/05 What you want to do ideally is remove the drum stub and setup completely from the car, to do this there are two bolts behind the wheel hub you need to remove (there is a nut on the rear on each) and the shoe anchor pin also has to be removed (the bolt at the top). However for this work guide I will be disassembling the drum setup to remove it.

Using a screwdriver (or a hammer with a light tap to the side) remove the grease cap from the drum setup.
P1020830 Date: 11/05/05 Next, clean any excess grease off with a rag so that you can see the split pin and can then remove it from the nut as I am doing in the image.
P1020831 Date: 11/05/05 You should be able to remove the nut fairly easily with just a socket, if it is a little tight then give the handle a few knocks with your palm, the sudden jarring will loosen it up.
P1020832 Date: 11/05/05 With the nut removed the wheel hub can be easily slid off. I keep the hub cap near where I am working and throw everything into it as I go, you can do that or use a bucket or whatever but definitely don’t just randomly place the stuff on the ground. At the end of this job (even though the drums are shagged) we reassembled the drum setup and put it into storage in case we ever needed it in the future, it’s hard to do that when you’ve lost half the components so take care where you put them as you remove them.
P1020833 Date: 11/05/05 Circled in the image are the two bolts you need to remove, they have nuts on the back so remember to support this side and under from the rear.
P1020834 Date: 11/05/05 Circled in this image is one of the nuts you need to remove from the bolts that were mentioned in the previous image. As you can see there typically is a mile of grease and gunk back there so if you need to give it a quick wipe to remove the excess so you can see what’s going on. These two bolts and nuts also hold the steering arm, so don’t be surprised when you remove it that the steering arm slides back away from the hub.
P1020835 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am showing how we removed the nuts and bolts. I was using the socket handle to turn the bolt while my old man supported the nut with the spanner, you can easily do it yourself though, especially if you’re not holding a camera and taking photos as you go…
P1020836 Date: 11/05/05 Next, before I went too far with removing the whole setup, I loosen the brake line off the back of the hub. If you have the disc brake lines you can later remove this line completely but I wanted to try and re-use them so I only loosened it a little so that I didn’t twist the pipe but could still remove it easily when the hub was off.
P1020837 Date: 11/05/05 Next we must remove the shoe anchor pin (or bolt as the case may be), which is circled in the image above. This bolt runs into a blind hole in the steering knuckle though so you should be able to leave it there and just continue on to removing the rest. We however are doing a complete disassembly for this guide so we’ll be taking it out so you can see what is being done easier. It also made it less likely we’d twist the brake line that was still attached.
P1020838 Date: 11/05/05 This is just a snap of me removing the anchor pin mentioned previously.
P1020839 Date: 11/05/05 With the anchor pin removed and the two holding bolts already gone we can now slide the assembly off the stub axle fairly easily, at this stage I could then twist it around and remove the brake line without twisting it.
P1020840 Date: 11/05/05 With the drum brake assembly out of the way I have sat the matching disc brake assembly nearby so that you can see how removing the drum brake stub will allow you to slot in the disc brake stub as a direct replacement.
P1020841 Date: 11/05/05 Since the steering arm has already been removed I can twist the drum brake stub axle out of the way and access the nuts that hold it more easily. In the image above the two nuts that have to be removed are circled in red. These two nuts are part of the upper and lower ball joint assemblies respectively.
P1020842 Date: 11/05/05 In this image I have loosened the two nuts, as you can see the assembly hasn’t moved even with the nuts well loosened. The idea here it to loosen the nuts but not remove them, infact leave them with a full grip on their thread and then give the assembly a wack with a hammer roughly where the two arrows are shown. This will allow the assembly to drop free on both ends from the ball joint bolts. This method is the backyard method naturally; I’ve read in the manual that there is a tool to expand it which of course would not put unnecessary shock through your ball joints. However a hammer is usually much easier to find and use.
P1020843 Date: 11/05/05 This image shows the stub assembly is free of the upper and lower ball joint bolts, now all you have to do is remove the nuts and when you lift the upper wishbone you can then pull the assembly free.
P1020844 Date: 11/05/05 In this image the stub axle assembly is removed and we are just inspecting it all before slotting the new disc brake assembly in position. My dad is just removing the excess grease, he likes playing with grease…
P1020845 Date: 11/05/05 I am now removing the brake line from the back of the drum brake hub. Make sure you have kept the cap on your brake master cylinder and you shouldn’t lose much brake fluid with the pipe removed.
P1020846 Date: 11/05/05 A few things are happening in this image, firstly I have screwed the old brake line into the calliper, and this was NOT a good idea, the disc brake calliper has a steel pipe that extends from the calliper down behind the disc brake shield and then a flexible line screws into that. The way I had done it appeared to work for a few days but after inspecting it daily I noticed that it was starting to crack and was also starting to pinch at a sharp angle. In the end this cost me two brake lines that were working fine and when I used the ones for the discs I also found one of them had deteriorated and was leaking. So for a bit of laziness I cost myself two spare brake lines and added the cost of a new one.

I am also in this image sitting the steering arm back into position (roughly) and getting the disc brake assembly ready to slide into position.
P1020847 Date: 11/05/05 I have now sat the disc brake assembly in position and ready to start bolting it up.
P1020848 Date: 11/05/05 Here I have put the nuts back onto the upper and lower ball joint bolts and tightened the assembly into position, it will still turn freely at this point because the steering arm isn’t bolted up. I’ve also run the brake line through the back ready to screw into the calliper (NOTE: This was mentioned 2 images previously as what NOT to do. What you should do is screw the steel brake line that comes with the disc brakes into the callipers, not use the straight drum brake flexible line).
P1020849 Date: 11/05/05 This is a better image of the back of the hub, as you can see the nuts are tightened and it’s all ready and waiting for the steering arm and the brake calliper.
P1020850 Date: 11/05/05 With the disc brake hub pushed at an angle where it is easy to see where things bolt to I am now putting the brake lines into the calliper and ready to put the calliper onto the assembly. One thing to watch here is that the steering arm bolt holes and the brake calliper bolt holes are the same size, so be sure to bolt the calliper to the correct two holes or you’ll have to take it off again to fit the steering arm.
P1020851 Date: 11/05/05 Here we are tightening the calliper bolts up, we’ve also hand tightened the steering arm into position so that we know everything is bolting to the correct position, don’t forget to tighten and retighten everything. Also, before tightening everything make sure you have everything bolted into position enough that the bolts won’t fall out when tightening other bolts, the steering arm and calliper aren’t that much trouble but the disc brake shroud can be difficult to line up and bolt in when the other bolts are already tightened.
P1020852 Date: 11/05/05 This is the rear of the assembled item, in this image the calliper bolts are circled red, the steering arm bolts are circled green and the two small disc brake shroud bolts are circled blue. Note the use of the drum brake pipe onto the assembly where the disc brake steel pipe should have been used.
P1020854 Date: 11/05/05 This is another shot of the rear of the disc brake assembly from the other side.
P1020855 Date: 11/05/05 This is a shot of the assembled disc brakes, as you can see disc brakes are a much more simple item than drums, they are also more effective when working properly. The surface rust on the rotor is nothing to worry about; it will come off under use. I later found out though that the disc rotor was undersized and had a bad runout. The people at ABS Brakes at Capalaba fixed this for me but there will be more images and comments at the end of this guide about the problems that occurred.
P1020857 Date: 11/05/05 I’m now ready to remove the old brake master cylinder to be replaced with the disc brake master cylinder. My first step to this end is to remove the brake line and keep it out of the way so it won’t be damaged. This is a steel brake line but it can be re-used if you mount your booster close to the master cylinder rather than right down the front as they were standard. To do this all you have to do is remove the brake line and carefully straighten it, I then bolted it to the booster and then carefully move the booster into position, bending the pipe while going. You have to be very careful to support the pipe and not get any kinks while doing this though and for most it might be best to go and buy the correct pipes and replace them (unless you got them from your donor car).
P1020858 Date: 11/05/05 Using a half moon spanner makes it much easier to remove the old master cylinder and also to install the new master cylinder.
P1020859 Date: 11/05/05 Here is where the master cylinder was mounted and where the new disc brake master cylinder will be placed.
P1020860 Date: 11/05/05 This is a picture of the two brake master cylinders, note the disc brake one says “Disc Brake” where the other just says “Brake”, there is a difference between the two in the way of a valve I believe and therefore you must use the correct master cylinder for the job.
P1020861 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am choosing the position of the booster relative to the steel pipe that originally went straight to the master cylinder. The flexible copper pipe will be going to the new master cylinder from the booster; it is the correct length to go all the way to the front of the car where the boosters were mounted as standard so it will be bent a bit weirdly when I’m finished. If for some reason you decide to mount the booster where I have make sure that it will fit below the closed bonnet and also that the bonnet hinge doesn’t hit it when closing the bonnet.
P1020862 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am showing the booster mounted and waiting for the master cylinder to be installed. If you are familiar with the HR engine bay you may notice that I have moved the washer motor from where the booster is now mounted to where it is on the far left of the image. If you move it the same principles apply as to the booster, make sure the bonnet doesn’t hit it when closing and that the hinge doesn’t hit it also.
P1020863 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am showing the complete installed master cylinder and booster, the twisted copper pipe was later replaced by the people at ABS Capalaba when they were fixing other problems.
P1020864 Date: 11/05/05 Now it is time to move to the rear drums. Surprisingly enough the rear drum brakes also have to be changed to suit the disc brake front end. Both the brake cylinder and the brake shoes will need to be replaced. In this image I have removed the drum and am ready to proceed.
P1020865 Date: 11/05/05 When removing drum brakes the first step is to get the shoes and attachments out of the way, and the first step to doing this is to remove the clamps and pins that hold the shoes in place. To do this you use a pair of pliers onto the pin that protrudes through the clamp and while pushing inwards against the clamp twist the pin until its flat head lines up with the elongated hole in the clamp and slides through. The pin can then be slid out through the back of the brake assembly and the clamp will fall off the front.
P1020866 Date: 11/05/05 In my hand here is the clamp I was referring to previously.
P1020867 Date: 11/05/05 I’ve found the easiest and quickest way to remove the brakes is to next prise the adjuster lever pivot plate outwards until the spring is no longer pushing against the shoe and falls off, I just use a screwdriver to do this.
P1020868 Date: 11/05/05 Once that spring falls off you can continue turning the adjuster lever pivot plate and the adjuster link that holds it at the top will also fall off.
P1020869 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am holding the linkage (adjuster link) that normally holds the adjuster lever pivot plate in place.
P1020870 Date: 11/05/05 With the adjuster lever pivot plate out of the way I can now remove the threaded adjuster itself, you may need to let it off before you do this or you may be able to lever the shoes apart to get it. I remove the adjuster before the spring that holds the two shoes together at the bottom because I’ve found it easier to retrieve the spring this way.
P1020871 Date: 11/05/05 Next the spring that holds the two shoes together at the base can be removed; with the adjuster remove you should be able to easily slide it off by pushing the two shoes together. If you look closely the spring is shaped so that one end will curve over the adjuster lug, if you put it back in the wrong way it will stick in a groove and you won’t be able to adjust your rear brakes.
P1020872 Date: 11/05/05 With the adjuster and spring removed from the bottom of the shoes I can now remove the front shoe by pulling it outwards, the spring will let go easily. The spring I am holding between my fingers slides over the end of the handbrake strut that is pictured in the next image.
P1020873 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am holding the handbrake strut which should fall out when you remove the front shoe. The spring pictured is one of the shoe return springs that goes from the top of the shoe to the shoe guide plate (at the anchor pin) at the top of the brake assembly. The spring I was holding between my fingers in the last image slides over the end of the handbrake strut and the rear shoe.
P1020874 Date: 11/05/05 Once the shoes are removed you can remove the shoe guide plate by simply sliding it upwards off the anchor pin.
P1020874a Date: 11/05/05 A new set of PBR rear brake cylinders to suit the disc brake front end. Part number P5573G.
P1020875 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am showing the difference between a drum brake rear end wheel cylinder and a disc brake rear end wheel cylinder (the gold one). As you can see one major difference is that the pins don’t have a cut out to slide over the shoes, there is also a difference in bore size.
P1020876 Date: 11/05/05 Back to the front brakes for a quick interlude (and since once the rears are done I will want to bleed the brake system and yet I haven’t finished at the front). I am fitting new brake pads to the disc callipers. To do this I first have to remove the two pins that hold the shoes, and to do this I first have to remove the small split pins that are holding them in place. Using pliers you should be able to slide them straight off very easily (if they are the original spring steel pins).
P1020877 Date: 11/05/05 With the locking split pins removed you can now simply slide the pins free of the calliper.
P1020878 Date: 11/05/05 Next slide the brake pad into position, making sure the pad side is towards the rotor and the steel backing plate is towards the calliper pistons of course. If the calliper pistons haven’t left you enough of a gap you can usually push them back using the leverage of a screw driver, it may be helpful to remove the master cylinder cap to do this though so that there is minimal pressure fighting against you.
P1020879 Date: 11/05/05 Put both the pads in and then replace the pins and their locking split pins. This is how it should look.
P1020880 Date: 11/05/05 Back to the rear brakes. Behind the brake back plate you will see how the wheel cylinder is held in. There will be two bolts that need to be removed, also the bleeder nipple (bolt) and the brake line will need to be loosened and removed also. Before removing the cylinder though it is best to loosen the brake line off.
P1020881 Date: 11/05/05 Here I have loosened the nut holding the brake line to the cylinder and pushed it back an inch along the pipe. The pipe is still pushed into the cylinder but there is nothing holding it there now, so when you remove the two bolts holding the cylinder you can now remove the cylinder with no worries past the axle.
P1020884 Date: 11/05/05 Here is the old cylinder now removed, I have also removed the bleeder nipple to make the bolts and cylinder easier to remove.
P1020885 Date: 11/05/05 I am removing the bleeder from the new wheel cylinder so that I can push the cylinder into position easier (it actually gets in the way when you try and get the cylinder past the axle).
P1020886 Date: 11/05/05 This is the new wheel cylinder in position; note that there is a cut out at the top of the wheel cylinders to fit in with the anchor pin. Also note that the bleeder nipple will be at the top on the rear.
P1020887 Date: 11/05/05 Before adding or tightening the bolts that hold the wheel cylinder I am fitting the brake line to the cylinder, this is so I have a bit of free play in movement to get the brake line to line up correctly.
P1020888 Date: 11/05/05 With the brake line in position you can now add the bolts that hold the wheel cylinder and tighten them.
P1020889 Date: 11/05/05 Next I am doing the final tightening of the brake line now that the wheel cylinder is secure.
P1020891 Date: 11/05/05 Now, to put new rear shoes onto the car you’ll need to drop the handbrake cable off of the old shoe (easy) and place it onto the new shoe (hard), you can either do this by compressing the spring and struggling for an hour or three, or you can drop the handbrake cable from under the car to give you the free play you need.
P1020892 Date: 11/05/05 The first step to dropping the handbrake cable is to remove the front section; you can do this pretty easily by pushing the handbrake arm forward (putting pressure on the rear brakes if they were still assembled) and simply pulling it out of the lever. In the image I have just removed it after moving the lever forward.
P1020893 Date: 11/05/05 Next we need to remove the pin (circled in red) that holds the rear brake cable to the arm, you should be able to simply push it out but you may find that it is smarter to remove the spring that is holding pressure on it first (circled in green).
P1020894 Date: 11/05/05 This is the handbrake assembly under the car with both the front and rear handbrake cables removed; I can now go back to the rear brake shoes and swap them with the disc brake required shoes.
P1020895 Date: 11/05/05 With the handbrake cable removed I can now pull the cable into the rear brakes allowing me some free play to replace the brake shoe. As you can see in the image; the arm on the brake shoe just slides over the cable, you’ll need around an inch of free cable to get it to slide over it easily though.
P1020896 Date: 11/05/05 Now we can reverse the steps to putting the handbrake assembly back together under the car.
P1020897 Date: 11/05/05 Back to the rear it’s time to reassemble the brakes. The first step is to put the shoe retaining pin through to guide the shoe onto.
P1020898 Date: 11/05/05 Holding the pin at the rear we can now slide the shoe over it and into position.
P1020899 Date: 11/05/05 To get more pressure into the shoe retaining clamps I sometimes widen them a little using two sets of pliers like shown.
P1020904 Date: 11/05/05 With the handbrake cable attached I can put the rear shoe onto the car, the first step is to put the adjuster lever pivot plate onto the shoe, you may or may not want to put the return spring on with it, I usually leave it off because it is easy to slide on later. There is also a small cap that goes through the adjuster lever pivot plate and guides the retaining pin into position.
P1020906 Date: 11/05/05 Once the pin is through and you guide the brake over the top, you simply have to push some pliers against the shoe retaining clamp (spring) to allow the pin to protrude through, then close the pliers around its flat tip and twist it until it will lock into the clamp. After the shoe is held I usually slip the return spring onto the adjuster lever pivot plate and that side is done for the moment.
P1020906a Date: 11/05/05 The front shoe is much easier since there is no adjuster plate to worry about, once it is on though you’ll need to put the shoe guide plate on which will hold the shoes in at the top.
P1020907 Date: 11/05/05 Here are the brakes reassembled but still lacking the springs that will hold it all and return it to position after braking.
P1020908 Date: 11/05/05 While there is still some free play available I will put the shoe adjuster screw into position, you may need or want to let it off, especially if you have put new shoes on, or the drum may not go back onto the brakes. Make sure that when you put it between the shoes it is going to be able to be adjusted from behind the wheel (i.e. the toothed wheel can be accessed directly from behind the wheel) and that it is adjusted as up is tight (this will mean the adjuster plate will stop it from undoing itself). It saves some bother if you have made sure not to get the two mixed up when doing the job.
P1020909 Date: 11/05/05 With the adjuster in I am now getting ready to put the adjuster screw spring in place. The first thing to do is make sure you will have it lined up so that the twist in the end of the spring will go over the toothed section of the adjuster.
P1020910 Date: 11/05/05 To put the spring in I simply slide the back end in by hand (into its hole on the rear shoe) then using a screwdriver I put the head of the screwdriver through the half loop at the end of the spring and then into the hole, with that set up I then lever the screwdriver away from the spring which stretches it out and slides it along the screwdriver into the hole. It may take a few attempts but it works.
P1020911 Date: 11/05/05 The next thing to go on is the adjuster link, to fit this you may need to let some pressure off the adjuster itself which you’ll likely need to do anyway if you have new rear shoes. The link just slides over the lug on the end of the adjuster plate and over another lug on the shoe guide plate.
P1020912 Date: 11/05/05 Here I am showing how I have let the adjuster off to allow the shoes to come closer together and give me some free play to work with. To let an adjuster off that has a pivot plate fitted you’ll need to lift the plate away from the teeth on the adjuster screw, else it will do its job which is to push against those teeth and stop the adjuster from letting itself off.
P1020915 Date: 11/05/05 Next I need to add the handbrake strut and spring; in the image shown I am holding it the wrong way around since the short end needs to go against the rear shoe due to the handbrake arm that is attached to the shoe needing to travel. With the free play I have given the shoes by letting the adjuster off it is a simple matter to slide this strut into position.
P1020916 Date: 11/05/05 This is the brake reassembled with the handbrake strut in position showing how the short end goes against the rear (handbrake) shoe and the long end holds the spring and pushes into the front shoe.
P1020917 Date: 11/05/05 My final step with the rear brakes is to put the last shoe return spring on, as you can see I use a similar method to the adjuster screw spring by using a screwdriver to lever it into position, which is through the mating hole in the shoe and across to the shoe guide plate..
P1020918 Date: 11/05/05 The brakes reassembled. You may note that the main difference between drum rear shoes and disc rear shoes is that the disc rear shoes lack a cut out for the piston to slide over. The flat piston on the disc rear shoes simply pushes straight against the flat section of the shoe itself.
P1020919 Date: 11/05/05 With the brakes assembled it’s time to do the finishing touches, mainly the vacuum pipe needs to be fitted from the booster to the manifold. Pictured I have the pipe onto an available fitting in the manifold.
P1020920 Date: 11/05/05 The other end of the pipe goes onto the brake booster to supply it with vacuum when the car is running.
P1030001 Date: 11/05/05 To make sure your brake rotors aren’t running out you will need to use either a screw gauge like shown above or take it to a brake shop like ABS Capalaba (which is what I ended up doing since my gauge was not working properly).
logo Date: 12/05/05 Due to getting water in the brake system and being unable to remove the water or bleed the brakes properly (also because after a week a sudden vibration had come through the brakes), the car was sent down to Santo Ciccolallo at ABS Capalaba. After inspecting the brake system they found various faults that needed to be addressed. These included:
Front discs were running out
Front discs were under minimum thickness
Left hand front brake hose leaking
Brake master cylinder had various problems and needed replacement
Rear brake shoes needed replacement and the drums needed machining
The brake booster was faulty.
The front brake lines needed brackets to support them correctly at the wheel.
A spring holding one of the brake lines needed to be fitted.

After all these problems were fixed by ABS we went to pick the car up and the wife drove it home (it’s her car after all). Immediately on getting home she asked me to ring them and tell them how pleased she was in their performance. I decided to take the car for a drive around the block myself and see what she was rabbling about and must say that I was impressed as well. Santo and his tradesmen at ABS had gotten this 40 year old brake design pulling up like a brand new car, it was simply unbelievable how good her brakes were performing.

So if I have to recommend doing anything specific when changing your drum brakes to disc it would be to definitely not leave everything sitting in your shed for a few months like I did for starters. Secondly I’d recommend getting new parts like a reconditioned brake booster and master cylinder, new rotors, rear shoes and master cylinders. Finally when the job is done send it down to the experts to check over and make sure everything is ok.

My car also has disc brakes and when I get a new booster and master cylinder and a little spare cash I’ll be sending it down to ABS also to be checked over. My brakes pull up much better than drums but ABS made my wife’s car so much better that my brakes might as well be drum brakes compared to the difference.

So finally from my wife and myself a big thanks to everyone at ABS Brakes for the excellent work they did on the car.

ABS Capalaba
95 Redland Bay Road
Capalaba Queensland 4157

Santo Ciccolallo
T: (07) 3823 5288
F: (07) 3245 3188
M: 0407 039 935
E: abscapalaba@ozemail.com.au

Open: Weekdays 8am to 5pm and Saturday 8am to 12pm
P1030009 Date: 11/05/05 The following images are all taken after the car was received back from ABS Capalaba.

The new booster and master cylinder.
P1030010 Date: 11/05/05 The new booster and master cylinder from the passenger side.
P1030011 Date: 11/05/05 The new booster and master cylinder from the drivers side.
P1030033 Date: 18/05/05 A shot of the passenger side front, if you look closely you'll see the new brackets that were manufactured to hold the brake lines.
P1030034 Date: 18/05/05 A shot from the rear of the passenger side front, this photo shows the bracket manufactured by ABS and also the new brake line that replaced my leaking one.
P1030035 Date: 18/05/05 The new brake line where it joins the original steel line.
P1030036 Date: 18/05/05 A replacement spring was used on the drivers side since the original was long gone. I used to work in a factory that made these springs! damn that factory job sucked...
P1030037 Date: 18/05/05 The new bracket on the drivers side.
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