M O D I F I C A T I O N S : BRAKES, Mike Satur's 280mm conversion kit

I ordered the kit from Mike Satur and it arrived on my doorstep nicely packed and with a one-sheet fitting manual. Although the manual doesn't looked that clear to me (not really a technical person and without the standard brake setup near me) it all made sense when we (Bruno helped me) started doing the conversion.
One of the frequently asked questions will probably be: "how long does it take and was it difficult to succeed?". Unfortunatly, the answer is more difficult than the question as all depends on the removal of the 'old' brake discs. We've done the swap to 280mm's on two different car and all of the wheels were different. Admitting that 3 discs out of 4 were easily removed, the fourth took us almost 3 hours of hammer banging to free the hub.

                B e f o r e

VVC-wheel at the front of the car with the standard brake setup behind it.
  

                  A f t e r

Same VVC-wheel but with a brand new 280mm disk behind it (and too much copper grease on the brake pad, on the outside)

 

The kit comes with two brand new 280mm discs, marked left and right, 4 x 40mm long cap head screws, 4 x 50mm long cap head screws, 4 x plain washers, 4 x taper washers, 2 x calliper adapter brackets, 2 x disc centring rings.

Interesting things to add to your shopping list:
- new brake pads (new discs require new pads)
- 4 x screw to fix the discs (as the original part could get damaged).

Go ahead with jacking up the front of the car and securing its position with a set of axle stands.

The picture at the left shows the brake disc, brake calliper, both mounted on the wheel hub. The orange marks are just grease, so it looks like this disc will come of easy.

Remove part A (see picture at the left) from the brake calliper by undoing bolts 1 and 2 (using a socket spanner). This action is followed by removing the 'old' brake pads.

Remove the other part of the brake calliper (part B) by unscrewing bolts 3 and 4. Don't disconnect the hydraulics of the calliper, but place it in a position that is most comfortable for the hydraulic piping. Use a small rope or cable wrap to secure its position. The last thing you want is the situation where the brake calliper drops and the hydraulics get disconnected or damaged.

Next step: use an impact screwdriver and a proper bit to loosen up the screws of the discs. Two screws per disc.

Use some Locktight (sp?, a thread-locking compound) on the bolts which will secure the bracket to the hub (the 40mm once).

The tapered washers should be fitted so the taper clears the radius in the corner of the calliper bracket.
Fit the calliper bracket with the two tapered spaced washers in between the hub and the plain washer under the head of the cap head screw.

 
The bracket and washers are fitted in this way that the surface of the hub where the bolt has its hole and the surface of the bracket are in the same plane (as indicated by the yellow lines on the picture at the left). It needs to be in this way, as the calliper just needs to move in one direction (out of the center).

Place the centring rings with the chamfer to the inside (or with the flat side to the outside, which makes it easy to use a small hammer to bring it in its final position.

Mount the new disc onto the hub and secure it with the two retaining screws (it could be usefull to use a set new ones).
Use some Locktight on the 50mm bolts and use them to fixate the calliper part B to the bracket. (picture left, below and below at the left)

Use copper grease or another more spoacialised product on the back (outside) of the new pads and fit them at each side of the disc as shown in the picture at the left.

Remove the other part of the brake calliper from its secured position, and use a tool to press the piston back in the calliper. There is no picture of this action, as we didn't use the right tool for this, but it worked out fine (although some serious power was required) . . .

Once the piston is moved back again, slide the calliper over the pads and make sure it fits properly.

Use the old bolts to secure its position again.

 

Guess what, this brake is finished, so put the wheel back on and start with the other side.

After finishing both wheels and lowering the car, press the brake pedal 2 or 3 times to settle the calliper piston before driving and avoid hard braking for the first 200 miles to allow the discs and pads to bed in.

A scanned copy of Mike's manual can be found here.

Special thanks flies to Bruno as he did most of the job, arranged the garage and let us use some usefull tools and most of all, to end up with a clean install: some good fellowship.