Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Went to change my disks and pads this morning, failed miserably by snapping the first caliper bolt I tried to undo.

I'm booked in with Richard Henry on Thursday for some other work, and they said they could sort my brakes out whilst they're at it - which is good, but the problem is... I'm 40miles away from them.

The bolt came out about two turns before seizing up again and then the head snapped clean off. From what I can gather, the threaded part is still well and truly bedded into the caliper and the bolt still protrudes through the caliper bracket - so I'm hoping it'll be alright to drive on providing I don't rely on the breaks for any excessive braking.

It was the bottom bolt, on the front passenger side caliper.

I've done some sharp stops in my cul-de-sac to make sure the caliper doesn't move, but that won't be a fair test of doing 60+ on the motorway!

Suicide, or doable providing I'm careful?

Worlasshasansti

Doubt anyone will wanna say yay or nay to this

If the calliper seems secure I would be tempted to say just go canny and hope for the best, obviously if your calliper flies off, takes an overhead bridge out causing a 10 car fireball on the dual carriage way and kills everybody involved then its not my fault

Is there no chance yourself or a mate could remove the bolt for you before you have to use the car?

Would be a better option obviously

Mick

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

Have you got a welder close by, best bet is to try weld the bolt back on,

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Agreed completely Mick, I'm not sure what my options are for removing the bolt on my drive and I have no access to a welder.
The bulk of the bolt is still in place doing its job, literally just the head is missing so the only protection I'm losing is if the caliper moved away from the car 90degrees from the hub, which of course can't happen due to the disc and other caliper bolt.

The bolt still protrudes through the bracket, preventing the caliper from rotating with the direction of the disc - but everything about this situation screams "stay off the road"!

Is liquid metal any use just to tack the bolt head back on? There should be no force along the length of the bolt, just across the girth of it.

I might be able to grind some flats onto the bolt, so I can latch on with mole grips etc, but if I couldn't move the bolt with its head and a socket wrench... I don't think grips will help!

Only other option is to try and remove the top bolt, preferably without snapping that one too and then I could probably wiggle the caliper off the car with the snapped bolt in situ and then I can take the caliper to a machine shop for proper extraction. Ive lost all confidence to remove any further bolts though, so tiptoeing 40miles might be preferred

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

I've done a 60mph shakedown on a b road and braking even heavily felt fine. Im probably sat on a timebomb though, and failing on the motorway would suck

Worlasshasansti

If you feel you're best option is to carefully drive it to the garage then just do it, just give yourself as much room as possible so as to avoid affecting any other road users.

If it were me I would soak to two bolts overnight with wd40 maybe give the top bolt a good t*at with the hammer to give it a shock, then soak again and leave it till the morning, if you can get the top bolt out and wiggle the calliper off you should then be able to get the stud out with a good pair of mole grips if you can't get access to a welder.

I would think chemical metal would be pretty useless in this situation.

Good luck with it though whichever you choose fella, its a pita when daft things like this set you back even though it happens on a regular basis lol

Mick

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Thanks Mick.

There are a couple of engineering places local so I'll call them on Monday to see if they can help. I may try tomorrow to remove the top bolt, it will have had 24hours of penetrating fluid by then so hopefully it'll come.

If I can get the caliper off, I can at least have the option of taking it from place to place until somebody can help me out. The local garages have seemed reluctant in the past to touch anything other than a bolt on job or MOT...

Worlasshasansti

Ooooh errr hopefully you're gunna come after 24 hours of penetrating????

Seriously though you must know someone "handy" that could help out without having to resort to paying machining places etc?

If you were closer I would have gotten it out for you although I'm on my way out so I won't be able to drive tomorrow as I suffer epic Sunday hangovers lol.

Mick

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Haha, I know a couple of guys yeah but not sure I can steal their time before Thursday!

Have a good night

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

you have to think where you stand legally if anything did happen,
is joining the AA out ?

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

I'm an AA member actually, with homestart... maybe an option if tomorrow doesn't go well. Agreed completely though, I really don't want to risk an accident for the sake of others more than anything.

Some time between my last post, and now - I decided that this car isn't taking me without a fight.

I worked out that if I disconnected the hub from the suspension strut, that I could get my impact gun on the last remaining caliper bolt. Luckily I had anti-seized the strut bolts when doing a suspension change so they came off easy!

With the hub disconnected, I got the impact gun on and battered off the top caliper bolt - so now the only thing holding the caliper to the hub was the shaft of the broken bottom bolt.

I removed the pads from the caliper, which should give me enough wiggle-room to get the disk off the hub, and once that's off - I should be able to remove the caliper.

With the caliper off, I can have a proper go at extracting the bolt - thinking about grinding a couple of flats on it and going to work with more penetration and molegrips. If I can't get it off, at least I can easily drive the caliper to a garage and have them do it.

Unfortunately the disc is also stuck to the hub, but there are two 8mm bolt holes intended for screwing in a couple of bolts which will drive the disc off of the hub... only thing I'm missing are the 8mm bolts

The car is currently sat with one corner cocked up in the air on a stand with the wheel and my tools locked away for the night.

Jobs for tomorrow:

Buy some 8mm bolts
Buy a replacement caliper bolt (if I can't, I'll order one from Subaru and just complete the job mid-week)
Pop the disc off
Take caliper off
Try and extract the bolt

If I find a replacement caliper bolt, I've got a choice of either putting a new disc, new pads and new hoses (I'll have to bleed anyway as the caliper will have been off) and also doing the other side - or I can put the old stuff back on if I'm time/daylight restricted and have RH do it all on Thursday.

Feeling a bit rejuvenated with it now, is there any science to suggest using an impact gun on both bolts at the other corners will reduce the chance of a sheered bolt? I imagine the BANGBANGBANG nature is more suited for cracking a seizure rather than the consistent pressure of a breaker bar which will just be twisting the bolt to the point of snapping?

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

if they are brembos you may take the threads out

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Yeah I've heard about that, a few posts comparing them to "soda cans" or "coke cans" as we call them!

I guess there's little difference in snapping a bolt or stripping the threads - both options are likely to result in a coil.

craigybaby

iTrader: (8)

I had this problem when changing the fronts on mine I'm not sure which bolt has snapped on yours but mine was the top bolts so what I did was undo the bottom bolt and it was enough to move the caliper up and down I bent the heat shield back and rotated the caliper up and it was just enough to pull the disc off with the caliper still on the car then it was a case of prising the caliper off the hub as there is no thread in the hub the only bit which is threaded is the caliper itself so it should just pull off then when I had it off the car I heated up the half of the bolt that was sticking out of the caliper and managed to turn it with some mole grips hope this helps any questions feel free to ask

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Thanks Craig.

Unfortunately its the bottom bolt which broke on mine. I can rotate the caliper down but not enough to remove the disc.

Even though the bracket isn't threaded, the bolt is well and truly stuck in it so I can't even slide the bracket off

While waiting for my plus gas to soak in a bit more I made a start on the other side. Once again the top bolt came out easily but the bottom one just will not budge had my impact gun on it and it won't rotate it in the slightest! It feels like the head is close to rounding on it too.

Ill give the penetrative stuff another few hours then ill just rebuild the car with the old discs and pads and wait for Thursday. As the bolt is so seized in the bracket, im now confident the car will survive the journey! .

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Some nice progress today, managed to wrestle the caliper off the car and put to one side.

I then moved to the driver side, again the top bolt came out easy and the bottom one just would not budge. I think I may have burned out my rattle gun, it seriously got a pounding from it and it wouldn't move.

I settled on the fact I'd need to snap that bolt too, and then at least I could take both calipers to a machine shop (or similar) to get drilled/tapped. I finally managed to snap the bolt by putting my ~2foot torque wrench on it, then jacked the handle up with my trolley jack!

With both calipers off, a timely PM came through from Steven of SD Motorsports who happens to live quite local. He offered to help with the calipers so I drove them both over.

Steve quite quickly extracted the bolt from the passenger side, but the driver side wasn't moving - it was literally welded in. I left the driver caliper with Steve so he can drill, tap and helicoil it tomorrow (hopefully) for me.

After returning home, I got the driver side all re-assembled with one of the good bolts I had, and I'll take the second good bolt to some hardware places tomorrow to try and get some replacements in time for Steve to finish the caliper.

Glad I stuck it out, as technically I performed the brake change myself and I even swapped hoses too!

Thanks for the pointers guys, but I won't be driving on one bolt!

Worlasshasansti

Glad to hear your making progress fella

My hangover prediction was spot on managed to wash the car and nowt else lol

Mick

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Cheers bud, sounds like you had a good night!

I'm definitely going to make an effort to learn out to helicoil comfortably. It seems snapping bolts is going to be a common theme working on cars.

Fonzey

iTrader: (5)

Just to update this, eventually got both front calipers coiled at 1.75 to make it easier to replace the bolts. I changed all hoses and bled the system but decided to let Richard Henry tackle the rear discs today.

I'm currently sat in Wetherspoons in Bradford while the lads at RH have one of my rear calipers retapped. I'm glad I left it to them!

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Stupid threads on Brembos are a known problem... Evo's use a heavier thread to avoid issues.

dunx

bustaMOVEs

iTrader: (31)

Hope you get sorted Fonzey, cars in good hands now

Godspeed Brakes

iTrader: (259)

For those that don't know the STi brembo's have a finer thread on the front calipers ,thread Size M12 with a 1.5mm pitch , the EVO's use an M12 but with a coarser thread with a 1.75mm pitch , both cars rear calipers have the same M10 with a 1.5mm pitch.

The coarser thread on the EVO front calipers does help in that they don't have as much problems snapping bolts as the STi calipers , but we do still get them in for repairs , just not as often

Cheers Ian

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Nothing to do with the abuse both suffer ?

LOL

dunx

Dutch Scooby lover

iTrader: (3)

Probably not.
The mounting option on the Brembo's is not the best.
You have a steel bolt threaded into a alloy thread.
Add roadsalt and galvanic corrosion takes place very quickly.

If you look at the way a Stoptech caliper is mounted for example, all bolts/nuts that need to be undone to remove/service the caliper are similar metals, thus avoiding galvanic corrosion.The only alloy/steel connection is the 2 long threaded steel bars that are mounted into the alloy adapter and over which the caliper is mounted.
Never had any problems with those type of mouintings, it's always the steel bolt into alloy thread that seem to go to pot.