Father & Son Build - Front Disc Brakes

Sam and Nate get to work making sure this thing, with VW Thing front spindles, will stop. After a quick set up of an oversized gas tank, they remove the original Beetle brake drums and install a bolt on EMPI Wide 5 Disc Brake Kit. Fortunately, EMPI's late model kit also fits VW Thing front spindles, so the kit is a direct bolt on to the wider and taller Thing spindles. Nate and Sam divide and conquer the work and both make a couple mistakes along the way, but regardless by the end of the night, they have a gas tank set up, a new master cylinder with a top mount reservoir, and operating front brakes

Video Transcript

Hi guys, I'm Sam, and I'm Nate.

Last night we got the seats put in. We don't have them bolted down to the floor yet, but we'll get there. I want to get this big box out of the way; it's kind of in the way. So, what's in the box? We've got an oversized gas tank, pretty darn big. I think stock is roughly that tall. Yeah, and then we have a 4-inch neck, or 3-inch neck—this is like, I don't know, a big muscle guy with no neck. We'll get this set up real quick. These have a small amount of finishing oil. I'm going to go spray it out with some brake cleaner real quick.

That brake looks pretty darn close; almost, this one is alright. Spin it again. There, looks good. Alright, so the little notch on the bottom of the seal, put that towards the front of the car. Mind you, line your sending unit up to the side of the car that way.

Now we've got a new fuel Tap. Fiber washer pressed in over the flared end after drilling it out by hand a little bit, and this two set in just like that.

Alright, with that done, or at least preset, we can leave that hanging out now while we get to work on these disc brakes. So that box one of two goes on what size, or does it not matter? Well, box one of two, why don't you open it up? What part number do we got here? 22 28 950. There you go, and then, wow, a piece of packing from the seat mount was in the middle of the street this morning, and I had to go grab it. Awesome. Instructions, brake rotor, and another brake rotor, so one on this side, one on that side. Open it now. Master cylinder, which we're not going to use 'cause we're using four-wheel disc brakes, so we are not going to use the master one that comes with this kit. Those are probably the disc brake pads, yep, we will be using those. Yeah, definitely. Great caliper bracket , another bracket that on this side. Well, there is a left and a right. We'll figure out which size, which once we get them ready to go, but that's fine. I'll just guess that this is how they go, and then a bag full of hardware. We got some bearings, some seals, and some bolts. We got some brake hoses, to replace these old ones. Yeah, good thing. Uh, we got some brake hoses; we don't have it. However, I have some stainless steel braided ones we're going to use instead of those, and then we've got two boxes of brake calipers, uh, it's a lip top and another.

Alright, now we can divide and conquer by pulling off the brake drums and the backing plates, setting those to the side. You can work on one side, I'll work on the other.

Save all your hardware until everything is installed.

Alright now, let's see if Nathan got us set up with the right bracket. Is it might be? No, no, you can do this one. I believe that's the way it goes. Alright, perfect.

Okay, so I need this one, then? Yep. And then everything else is just universal, right? Left or right, the calipers are different left to right too, but we so just use the same nuts then bolts, bolts yeah, no use those. Oh yeah, thanks, and use the original washers though, right? Yep, oh yeah, 17 uh, 18, 18 is what they are. Yeah, I mean, that's what mine is. Alright, that's a 17, yeah, work it may have worked, but it's not torqued. As soon as you go to torque it, it's going to spin off. Oh, at that 17 fits perfectly. Uh, oh yeah, there is a bit of wiggle. Yeah, alright, then torque yours down. For good measure I think we should paint the front of these rotors before they start to rust. Uh, might be something we can do on the car, yeah, we can do that on the car once we in place. Races are not installed, and you are supposed to use a press to do this. What I'm going to do is I'm going to find a socket that fits just in the inside of that perfectly because if you are not cautious, I can't tell you how many times I've seen these snouts crack because people try to push this in, and it's just not quite going perfectly square, and they just going to keep on fighting it hoping that it squares up no, it's not going to, it's going to actually split this break rotor.

Now do we have any actually should just threw away a whole bunch of plastic bags, but do I have a small plastic bag for grease? For grease, that might be a little bit overboard in the grease but whatever. Alright, grab your bearings and throw them in there, just one at a time, bigger one first, no in the bag, there we go, and then you just down in there and squeeze all that grease into that bearing, and I've never found a better way for packing bearings.

That one is good to go over, so should I throw this on first? We got to put a sealing, oh yeah, oh yeah. Hey, look at that, it almost matches the color of the grease. Okay, so this just goes in and treads in, looks like no taps in, not good. Right inner is in place; you want to come over here and do this one? Sure. I think we didn't do something completely right. Uh, is it bracket on backwards or something, or what? Oh yeah, probably yeah, that's it. Uh, why cuz mine fits on. Oh, you put your bracket on backwards. I didn't, mine fits on perfectly. Oh yeah, I did put mine. How, how did I do that? Oh gosh, it's like stuck on here now.

Original thrust washer spindle that are you putting it on with the torque wrench. I'm going to make sure it's tight with. Okay, well loosen up then, that's true because are probably too tight like that tap our original. I don't know if I have a wire wheel or not, but I'll try and clean that up a little bit that way we're going to paint that it'll look nice and perky. Now with that in place let see if I've got the right caliper for this side, which I don't. I got the wrong caliper. Yeah, so that's mine, this is yours that one's right then and there you did it. A little cleaner greases and oils and junks and gunks off of there. Beautiful.

So our calipers, we'll install like so and bolt on the back side of that for our pads into our brackets like so, like so. I am going to put a little dab where my bag of grease ideally we would use disc break grease but we ain't got any yet, but we ain't got any this car is coming apart again, so you don't want squeaky squeak brakes so just on those corners then yep and also we're going to put some in the back of the pistons but we'll get there in a moment. Oh yeah, so like that these pins are already greased so that's good might be a bit hard to get in your power yep.

This is an EMP 986713-B not stock for this kit but it will do the job because we are bigger than stock. Before I hook this up to there, I'm going to actually flush this line out but I'll still thread this in which means we're almost ready to put on the new master cylinder. We can get some front brakes by the end of the day maybe. Brakes being done is going to be a very big step huh? Yes. And just so nothing gets lost in the meantime I'll put the clip back on but again we're not hooking up our steel line.

Alright, Nate, what you got? The lug nuts in, the studs thread in studs 12 mm X 1.5 with some ball seat lug nuts, and before you thread them in you want to use a little bit of loctite so just tighten enough bottom out. Alright, um we can pull that fuel tank out, have to go up and towards the back.

So where is the new master cylinder? Somewhere around here. Got to get the old one out first. There's spacers inside of here that you don't want to drop so we'll leave the bolts in. Uh want me to grab it from the other side then pull it out? Well we have to just connect the brake lines from that side if you want to grab an 11 mm wrench and get those 11 mm wrench right. Got the brake lines from yeah although you probably should have done that first but oh well yeah, oh well. Alright now I can clean that line out and me get these broken three and then you can get them the rest of way. Oh wait so does that one go to the back then? Yeah. Yeah alright so we're just going to block it off for now? So do we just put like a bolt into the, put a plug.

All right get those guys out on clean this guy up new extra large bore master cylinder. The big boy master cylinder. Does it have more ports than? No same amount of ports. We're going to have to pull those brake light switches. You know what, let's not even bother. I think I have enough plugs: brake light switch, brake light switch, brake line to the rear. However, we aren't running rear brake lines right now, and we're not running brake light switches right now. I want ratchet, or is that fine? No, this is fine.

I'm going to go inside and push those bolts in place and get them threaded by hand. Ready? Yep. Starting them by hand first usually is easier, but whatever. You got that one? Seems like you got that one too. Yep. Alright, tighten them down. Oh, there! Not going to worry about our front to rear brake line. Probably will that guy, yeah, that got started over there. There, alright, that's good. Um, that will fit that way, and these things are always a little bigger to get in. Oh, that's basically as tight as I can get it. Pull the clip out of the way. Doesn't quite reach, then bend the line now, and then we got in there and let's see, bend that back before we bend that because that one's too long anyways, huh? Was the other side good and tight? That's good, check that side, make sure that was good and tight. Look at these new fancy brakes, huh?

Alright, we may have to run down the street to, oh oh oh O’Reilly, get some brake fluids.

We're back, and now, A, we've got brake fluid. B, well, we have these from work. First time I use these things I said I will never bleed brakes without speed bleeders or quick bleeders, or whatever you want to call them. They're one-way bleeder valves. You pull this out, you put this in. Whenever you need to bleed the brakes, you crack that, you put your hose on, and you just sit there and pump them until you've got a clear stream of brake fluid. That's it. You can do it by yourself. I've done it, but since I've got Nathan, I'll do it. He'll pump. I’ll monitor and we'll be good to go. Yeah, you got it, h. Keep that cap though. I like that cap better than these caps. Thread that one in. You want to go swap out the other side? Alright, well, that's on. Nathan will do that one over there, while he's doing that, I will put some new fluid. Come on, fill up that front reservoir.

Alright, so I'm going to open the valve, not quite half a turn. Nathan, pump the brakes. I can see bubbles rising as he's pumping. Oh, a bunch more air came through that time. Oh, and it's dropping down to all the way in, all the way out. Oh, we're getting brake fluid. Alright, sweet.

Alright, keep going. So, how do you know when it's done? When I don't get any air when you're pumping. Alright, all the way up and all the way down, all the way down, all the way up, all the way down, all the way up, all the way down, and we're still getting a little bit air. Give me like five long pumps. Okay, oh yeah, still getting a bunch of air. Keep it going. Long strokes. Yep, oh there's a big bubble right there. Another one. Wish I could see this. Another big one. Woo, monsters. Alright, hold up, hold up. I want to check that we're not sucking air in. Oh shoot, that was stupid. I just sucked our entire reservoir empty of fluid. Does that mean that we need the cap on, or no? It just means I need to pay attention to how much brake fluid's in that bottle. Pump it again.

Alright, hold up. I'm just topping off the brake reservoir. Pump it. Alright, stop. That was last couple ones were all fluid, so I'm going to lock this one down, and we'll go do the other side.

It, it almost feels stiffer now. Good. So, what are we doing tomorrow? Um, maybe mount, weld up the front bumper, stuff like that. Alright, pump it up. Oh oh, here, lots of good fluid. There, we got nice, solid. It's giving me issues with, like, oh yeah, now you got a brake pedal. Now, now I can actually go all the way back, now down to the floor. Yeah, yeah. Alright, so hit the brakes. What? Hit the brakes, hold it. Alright, that one's locked, and that one's locked as well. Let me feel it.

I mean, we also might be able to mount the seats. Yeah, feels like it. Front brakes are bled. Put our cap back on. Yeah, I guess we set the tank back in place for now. You scratched the back, a good thing it's on the back. We have the front end pretty much almost done, huh? Just about. Um, might as well tighten up these shock bolts.

Alright, there. Yeah, you can do this side. I mean, also need to do the bottom, huh? You always just color match, go and put new stickers on them. Yeah, just leave me yellow. Alright, Nathan. Yeah, I mean, we got the gas tank in, we got most of the front end all put together, we bled the brakes.

It is Friday, April 5th. We obviously have the desert Dub Show coming up on the 20th. Uh, we've got the full weekend this weekend, three nights next week, next weekend we're out of town, uh, and then three nights the week following, and then we've got to be, that gives us to April 20th, so we've got like what, six nights of six week nights and this full weekend to try and get this thing ready to go. Not a whole lot, not a whole lot of time, but we'll see what we can do. On that note, Nathan, life's so good, people. If you can't find one, be one. Later, guys.