Front Brake Removal and Clean Up
The front brakes were in some sorry shape. They were frozen and laden with rust. It was very difficult to get them off the rotor. The pads have lots of life with them and they also have the built-in wear sensors. However, the folks on the pantera board said that I should consider new pads. The front wheels were pretty nasty as well. They are not as in good of condition as the rears but I will have to work with them to make 'em look nice. Anyway, I got the calipers off and I installed the front shocks. Here are some pics:

Rear Brake Install:
I got the beautiful brakes from Hall Pantera. They were much better looking than the other vendor's and not that much more. The box came ripped but I am happy that I didn't lose any! Anyway, I got right to work and the rear brakes went on without issue. I also took this time to scrub the rims and tires in the rear. They look brand new! Check out the pictures here:

Clean up and Prep:
Before my new brakes arrived from Hall Pantera, I wanted to do some cleaning and prep. Nothing major, just some scrubbing and a little paint detail. I also painted the headers and exhaust. During this process, I found that one of my hardlines in the right rear was twisted! This line connects to this T fitting that is in a really tight place.. Luckily PI had a old hardline laying around. Anyway, the clean up made a big difference! Check it out:

Suspension Work

I have got a lot done since my last post but I have been travelling a lot lately and haven’t had the chance to update the blog. I will cover the projects I have completed chronologically since the last post as seperate entries..

Suspension-Shocks:
While I awaited delivery of my second set of “new” brake calipers I decided that this would be a great time to remove the US spec spacers on the shocks. I took them down to my local good year dealer and they had a nice strut compressor. I own a shock compressor but the sprung energy really scares me. Anyway, here are some pics of the shocks

Here are the shocks BEFORE removal of the spacer:

And here are the shocks AFTER removal of the spacer:

The front shocks also have spacers as well and here are the BEFORE pictures:

Here are the front shocks AFTER the spacer is removed:

Rear Brakes: One Step Forward...Two Steps Back

When I discovered that the brakes were frozen, I decided that I would go ahead and buy some new/used calipers instead of rebuilding the old ones. Since used sets from Pantera Performance were only $600+ I thought I would save myself some time. I figured just replacing calipers would be an easy job and I would be on the road in no time. And while I was at it; I was going to add some steel braided brake lines from the hard lines for better pedal feel. Let's just say my expectations were much higher than reality. Before I cover this post, I want to thank all the guys on the DeTomas Internet Community for all the help they gave me this week. Tons of great knowlege!
Let's start from the beginning. My first step was to organize and buy supplies. As I mentioned, I bought a full set of calipers from Pantera Performance. I also read my records and bought the same synthetic brake fluid as the previous owner as I figured I would basically flush the entire system while I was at it! I gathered all my parts for inventory and printed out some technical information to assist with the job:

Next was removing the old caliper on the driver side. The caliper was completely frozen; it was almost like it was packed with mud??? I took some preemptive steps and used a lot of penetrating oil on different bolts, etc.

As you can see in the above picture, there is a lot of gunk that packed the brake pad in. I had to hit it with WD 40 just to get it loose!

The e-brake cable was tough to get off. I couldn't get enough slack in the cable to pull the cable out of the old caliper.

The only way I could get enough slack was to go underneath to where the e-brake handle interfaces with the pulley system that actuates both parking brakes on the rear calipers and remove it from it's mounting stud.

This allowed me to finally remove the caliper from the car!




I then turned my attention to the "new/old" caliper. First thing I did was attach the new steel braided brake hose






When I was about to fit the caliper to the car, I noticed something peculiar about the brake pad retaining pin....it was really bent!



At this point, I checked out my old caliper and noticed that my brake pad retaining pins were great and that I would just swap them. Here are comparison pics: First is the one from the part from Pantera Performance and the other one is off my car:






As you can see, the "new" set up wouldn't have worked at all. At least I can combine the two but for $600+ for calipers, I was expecting something in better shape (there are some other issues I haven't written about yet).

Anyway, I moved forward and mounted the "new" caliper with my retrofitted parts onto my car. I got the ebrake cable connected and now was time to fit the brake pads. As I tried to get the inner brake pad in, I noticed that the piston was too far out. I couldn't push the piston in but I found out that you have to rotate it 45* and then it will go in but that you have to then rotate the piston back to center when done.


I rotated the piston 45* from center using a screw driver and being careful not to scar the rotor. Once I did this, the piston went in! In fact, a little puff of dust came out of the bleed screw that I had opened.



But as I went to go and rotate the piston back to it's correct orientation, my screwdriver slipped and tore a hole in the outer brake seal :(



So what now? At first, I was swearing to high heaven! I just bought these brakes and they weren't really in that great of shape...maybe I should have just have bought a rebuild kit for mine! But no...I was in a hurry and I could just go ahead and buy some "new ones" and be moving on. Well first big lesson I am learning with the pantera that was different than building a kit car with new parts is that old is old....even if the parts are new to you. Also, you can't assume that the parts are good either. So...I ordered up a lot of manuals and I am going to go ahead and order that rebuild kit and I am going to go through all the calipers and rebuild them; inspecting them against the drawings and for any issues. What this means is that the cat will be in the cat house for a lot longer than I had thought. But at least I will learn a lot of stuff along the way!