March 2008 Archives

This weekend I started on the brake system.  Two of the brakes are seized and all sat for many years without being used.  The plan is to send the brakes and brake booster out for rebuilding and replace the brake lines myself.  I hope to find a good brake rebuilding company in Southern California, so that I can have a chance to talk to and learn from the guys doing the work.  The pistons will need to be nickel plated and resleeved.  I'm not sure if the brake shop can do the nickel or not.  I also plan to have the brake guys replace the balance tube and first segment of the fuel line with stainless steel.

Removing the first brake took about 4 hours of hard work.  Removing the next one took about 30 minutes of intelligent work.  Having a chance to look at the first one on the bench let me figure out what I needed to do, which tools to use and what order to do it in.  After that, with the exception of a few very stuck bolts, removal was a snap.  Special tools needed were flare nut wrenches in standard, not metric sizes, sockets with a breaker bar, an air impact wrench, good 6 sided box wrenches and some sort of wrench extension tool.  I got a great wrench extender from Eastwood for a couple of bucks.

The bottom line is that there are only two bolts holding the on the calipers.  The front bolt is behind the steering arm, so it can only come half way out before getting stuck.  This kept me busy for a while, trying to figure out how to move or remove the arm.  However, it turns out that if you remove the rear bolt first, you can then slide the whole caliper off without taking the (loosened) front bolt out of its hole.  It's amazing how simple things become with a little experience!

Of course, in order to make sure nothing is simple, Ferrari placed the rear bolt behind the balancing tube.  Therefore, the tube must be removed, or to keep things together, you can remove one side, loosen the other and twist the whole thing out of the way.  While you are at it, remove the brake line, so you don't break it off when you remove the caliper.

Front and rear calipers are held on in the same fashion, but the rears are longer, having the emergency brake attached.  There are no extra bolts on the emergency brake, but you do have to dis-attach the the cable before removing the calipers.  This is held on with a pin and cotter pin.

 












If you still have them, the heat shields must be removed.  This is pretty straight forward, unless you make a bonehead move like me.  The rear bolt for the lower shield is buried into an indentation in the shield, which makes it almost impossible to get a wrench on and when you do, the sucker will not turn!  I experimented for quite a while; trying various ways to get significant torque on it without stripping the corners off the head.  After a long frustrating time, I took a look at the solid block of dirt and grease that was on the back of the mounting plate.  Scraping away the crap revealed a nut attached to the bolt I was trying to unscrew.  Doh!  Removing this nut allowed me to push the nut right out.  It was much easier the second time...

With an impact wrench to loosen the bolts, the discs came right off.  I originally tried using a ratchet wrench, but the disk just spun.  The impact wrench took them off immediately, with no fuss.  By the way, once the disc is off, you can push the bolts through and out on the front calipers.  However, in the rear, they hit a flange and won't come out.  The flange they hit is very rusty and looks like a pain to remove.  Looks like a project for another weekend.