02 GTP Front caliper replacement...

[Stevo]

My front brakes were making a squealing noise so I decided that the one that had the overly worn inner pad was on the fritz. I bought new calipers for both sides and painted them because 5 spoke wheels have a great way of showing how rusty your brake system is.

 

I think that the next time I have to do anything like this I am going to just have them powder coated. VHT paint is fucking horrible. There just isn't any good way to spray it on. I tried different methods and the shit is just garbage. Red also turns orange with 6-7 months of UV exposure.

 

I found the Grand Prix logo online and super imposed it over a picture of my caliper to scale to ensure that it would match the space and curve of the caliper. I printed out to logo and stapled the sheet beneath a sheet of mylar. I then put a length of fat masking tape over the mylar and using an exacto, cut out the logo. I put the mylar in the window for the sun to heat up and using tweezer and a blade pulled off the tape and put it on the caliper. With some silver heat paint, I zipped on the logo and put it in the sun to cure.

 

Anyhow, the whole process took 8 hours from wheels off to wheels on. Yeah, you heard it, 8 hours. I picked Saturday to do it because it was not going to rain. At 7am it rained off and on until 9am so I finally started at about 10am and didnt finish until 6pm. The hard parts were easy, the easy parts were hard. I could not get the metal shrouded rubber boots into the bracket because it seemed that the hole and the metal shroud was near the same size and I spent forever trying to force them in without destroying the boots, the last time I had to do something like that I just tapped them in without a problem. Then when I tried to insert the slider bolts I was somewhat suspect because have the slider had a smaller diameter to accommodate a larger rubber sleeve... one got jammed inside and road up over the slider so that the slider would only go in half way and became stuck. I got fed up and said to hell with this, clean up my original brackets and took a grinder to them and painted them and used my old brackets since I could not use my new ones with a stuck slider jammed in it. Bleeding took a few minutes with installation and clean up like 30+/- minutes.

 

Meanwhile the sun is BEATING the living crap out of me. I have to take a break every 20mins and drink water and stand in the shade. I woke up today with a hangover but with my brakes done. Next time I do this, I'm driving to my uncle's and working in his covered area.

 

edit: Oh I forgot to mention that the squealing noise was in fact some kind of metal bracket next to the tie rod inside the rotor that had gotten bent and was touching the rotor which means I could have bent it back with a screw driver and saved myself about $200 and my time. =\

 

My 2008 craptastic paint job

 

Slider bolts : Top to Bottom : Regular slider (which is slightly hexagonal), GM's aftermarket slider (note rubber sleeve on the end), New Caliper slider (with massive sleeve that rides up and over slider to stick)

 

Finished product