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Felicia 256mm Vented Brakes Upgrade


TeflonTom

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Hi folks, first of all, full credit to this entire concept goes to a jimbo, he's the one that inspired this whole thing :yes:

i need to upgrade the brakes on my pickup because the standard brakes aren't up to the job to be honest, so some scrapyard goodies have come my way.. there are many many types of brake calipers which might be compatible with the standard felicia uprights/hub carrier, but the most readily available components are normally from ford or vauxhall (for some reason :giggle: ), ok the centre spacing for the lugs which hold the carrier brackets on are 90mm on a felicia, pretty much all ford cars use the same 90mm spacing which leaves us a pretty good selection of 'cheapo' breakers yard classics to rob bits off, the ideal calipers and carriers to use are from a sierra with abs, which uses a 260mm disc and an ATE caliper with a 60mm piston but these are getting harder and harder to find nowadays so i'm going to completely can that idea in favour of something a little less suitable but more readily available..

000_0070.jpg

my donor car of choice was a mk1 ford mondeo circa 1996/7, which uses ATE brake calipers also with a 60mm caliper piston... this is a good choice as all of them use the same 260mm disc and caliper setup except the v6 models which makes future replacement easy and cheap if needed... like i said these are not ideal as there are a few minor issues which need to be overcome before they will fit the standard felicia uprights/hubs.

fyi the original skoda lucas caliper uses a 54mm caliper piston, the ford ones are 60mm, this will yield more clamping force at the cost of longer brake pedal travel, approx 23% longer pedal travel to be more precise..

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right, if you are going to be using scrapyard calipers 'as they come' it's worth making a few checks before you hand over your monies, the first check is that none of the bolts are siezed in, also make sure the threads in the carrier brackets are sound.. check the condition of the piston fluid seals, make sure the caliper slides aren't jammed up, as well as make sure the piston moves freely, i've found a good way to check the piston moves is to use a modified foot pump with the tyre valve removed, and use a jubilee clip onto the brake pipe.. there is a enough pressure in a foot pump to operate the caliper!.. check the bleed nipple will undo and is in good condition, check the fluid union threads for damage... carefully inspect both the carrier brackets and caliper castings for cracks or signs of misuse or damage. i would not advocate using second hand brake pads in ANY circumstances but try to get at least one pair of the pads to make identification of the new pads easier if necessary.

try to avoid calipers which have had the brake hoses removed befordhand, also avoid calipers that appear to be dry or have had no fluid in them for ages, in both of these cases it's likely the there will be internal corrosion of the caliper piston bore, however this does not automatically render a caliper usless as most calipers piston bores can be cleaned up with a special brake cylinder hone

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i paid £20 for the pair including the carrier brackets from my local breakers yard, one is older than the other as they came from different donor cars, but make sure you definitely get a left and right pair, the carrier brackets can be used either side of the vehicle, but the calipers are side specific, seen in the top photo they are the mirror image of each other with the hydraulic union and bleed nipples pointing uppermost.. for *most* ATE calipers you need a good strong 7mm hex key (allen key) to undo the slider bolts to seperate the carrier from the caliper, the one shown above is a laser tool which cost about £5, these bolts tend to be what engineers call 'effing tight' so watch out for skinning your knucles

Edited by TeflonTom
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FYI, a lot of poking through application catalogues tells me that later Mk4 Fiestas use an ATE caliper with a 54mm piston (on a 256mm vented disc) which should hopefully suit if you didn't want to affect the pedal feel too much.

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if you are doing any kind of work like this trying to mix and match parts it's worth having a spare of uprights with the hubs and bearings fully fitted to work with on the bench rather than having your vehicle off the road whilst you are searching or waiting for parts, i've had a left and right pair kicking around for ages especially for tinkering with, but i reckon no more than about £20 for a scrapyard one to work with. try to get one with the bearing in good condition as any runout in the bearing will play havoc with any measurement you 'may' need to make.. gave mine a good clean up with wire brushes then a couple of good coats of hamerite to prevent getting up of the bits filthy dirty..

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first initial mock up using the ford mondeo carrier bracket on the skoda uprights, as said above the bolt spacing is spot on correct, but a few minor fitting issues have arisen at this early stage...

1. the lugs in the skoda uprights have 10mm holes for the carrier mounting bolts and the ford carriers have an M12 thread in them, aside from stating the bleedin' obvious the holes in the uprights need to be drilled to 12mm so that an M12 bolt can be used, anybody wanting to try this can do this whichever way you please, but i strongly advise you not to drill them by hand with a power drill, it's vitally important that the holes are parallel and drilled so the spacing is not affected, and they need to be dead square otherwise you won't be able to get a bolt in without stripping the thread in the carrier bracket. i contacted a local machine shop and they said that this job would typically cost about £20 for them to do it for you, I did mine in my pillar drill but they are very tricky to clamp down securely due to the odd shape.

2. because of the nature using parts that were never designed to go together there are always clearance issues, with the lugs drilled out correctly as mentioned above the carrier will not sit fully down onto the machined area on the uprights, this is a quick and simple case of firing up your angle grinder and shaving a couple of milimeters from one side of the bottom edge of the carrier bracket, there's no real skill or precision needed to do it, it just needs be done using trial an error, i will describe this process later on with pictures to suit

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ok, i'm going to clean my stuff up nice and good, then paint them all in that disgusting skoda green colour eventually, but the worst thing in the world is getting covered in muck whilst fiddling with bits and pieces

000_0081.jpg

(the bracket show here is the exact same one in the pic directly above this one which shows a before and after of the shot blasting)

first thing I've done with my carrier brackets is get the shot blasted back to bare metal, this gets rid of everything including oil, paint, and brake fluid and gives a nice keyed finish which can be painted straight over.. it's also quite handy for showing up any cracks that might have appears in use over the years.. next i've run the correct sized tap through each thread.. there's a little bit or surface corrosion on these which is only to be expected on a nigh-on 16 year old caliper but they are perfectly serviceable and should paint up ok...

more on this thread tomorrow....

Edited by TeflonTom
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FYI, a lot of poking through application catalogues tells me that later Mk4 Fiestas use an ATE caliper with a 54mm piston (on a 256mm vented disc) which should hopefully suit if you didn't want to affect the pedal feel too much.

The fiesta calipers will only go over a 235mm disk on the skoda hub tho (or at least the pair I have here will) due to the differance in lug height

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May be useful to add; lots of workshops now carry a jigged thread insert repair for carriers which seems stronger than the original, although whether it would be economic to get it done this way depends on when and who. Used one last week, so there`re not very technical. Pillar drill was my choice on the original but the drill and tap were pricey if its a one off.

yes tom, have to agree,don`t use old pads at any price, they looked new they just didn`t pad

Edited by rolo
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ok, folks to do this bit safely you need a decent vice and some safety goggles, and somewhere with enough light to see what you are doing... i'm not responsible for you getting burning sparks in your eyes so play it safe folks

100_0791.jpg

a £10 argos grinder with a 4" grinding disc in..

edit: some good quality protective gloves are a good idea when grinding

Edited by TeflonTom
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this is dead easy guys, like i said before there is absolutely no precision needed to do this part, it literally just needed a couple of milimeters ground off from them, the key to it is removing the bare miniimum amount of material you can get away wiith, i reckon a good way to do it is haved you uprights to hand along with 2 M12 bolts and use trial an error and keep grinding off a tiny bit at a time till they fit properly... literally only a couple of mm to come off

100_0792.jpg

before

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after

when you've got them to fit, run the grinder over the the edges to put a nice chamfer on the edges to get rid of the sharp burrs left over from grinding

more on this thead tomorrow :rofl:

Edited by TeflonTom
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below mondeo carrier fitted to felicia upright/hub.. it's vitally important that the bolts you use don't poke out through otherwise they will foul on the brake disc, the bolts need to be M12, 30mm long, i recommend using high tensile socket head capsrews (allen key style) for this...

100_0795.jpg

100_0796.jpg

at this stage make 100% sure that the carrier sits down fully, i had to do a tiny bit more grinding to to get it fully right... you may notice that this upright in this pic is from an abs model, basically they are exactly the same as the non-abs ones except there is an extra hole for the abs wheel sensor, i can't see any reason why this setup would not work fully even on abs models, the wheel trigger disc bolts onto the inside of the hub and should function 100% correctly as per normal, the carrier does not interfere with the abs sensor at all..

next onto the brake discs. more on this thread later :rofl:

Edited by TeflonTom
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^^ yes what he said, wont work with the abs ring..

anywho, the mintex man cometh.... the discs you need are mintex part number MDC1839, i've got no idea about what other brands of disc are available or thier part numbers but QH do them and so do National.. the disc is from a Kia Rio (mk2) 2005>

the standard original disc on a felicia is 236mm x13mm thick, solid disc, 4x100pcd, with 62mm centre bore... 47mm height

the kia disc is 256mm x 22mm thick, vented disc, 4x100pcd, with 62mm centre bore... 47mm height

so to all intents and purposes they are pretty much the same except for diameter and thickness, the disc fits on perfectly without any modifications at all to the discs or hub and locates centrally within the ford caliper carrier bracket like it was designed for the job! makes it easy to replace them in the future if needed

100_0798.jpg

felicia upright fitted with mk1 ford mondeo caliper carrier & mk2 kia rio brake disc

make sure you have some brake cleaner aerosol to hand when fitting the discs to the car because new brake discs come coated in an oily surface to protect them from surface corrosion, whilst you are there you might as well buy some proper brake grease too for the brake pad backing plates/slides

edit: forgot to say, these discs are roughly £50 which is not much more than the standard felicia discs

Edited by TeflonTom
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a few more words on calipers, before thinking about brake pads

it was my intention to fully strip the ford brake calipers, get them shot blasted and then fit a new piston/seal kit, i spoke to the very knowledgeable gentleman in my local motor factors and he advised me that a caliper rebuild kit is roughly £20, but a reconditioned exchange caliper is £25 with a £10 surcharge

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needless to say i went for a pair of recon units rather than getting my hands dirty, exchange unit pictured above, spotlessly clean, also zinc plated with 1 years warranty, handed over my rusty old scrapyard units in exchange.. make sure you keep the guide pins though!! they are not supplied with new ones and they cost £30 per pair from ford parts department!!

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mmm shiney B) I'll try to get a pic up of my disks after the road rally last weekend lol they now look like they have done 40K, still not one ounce of fade even when we cleaned one selective by 6 mins or so :giggle:

is it bad when the paint is burning off the back of the pad :wonder:

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mmm shiney B) I'll try to get a pic up of my disks after the road rally last weekend lol they now look like they have done 40K, still not one ounce of fade even when we cleaned one selective by 6 mins or so :giggle:

is it bad when the paint is burning off the back of the pad :wonder:

Which discs did you use?

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i wish this thread was started 3 weeks ago before i spent the money on new discs and green stuff pads, and new synthetic 5.1 fluid,

not that i've fitted any of them yet!

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green is so last year!!!

100_0801.jpg

got this motley crew of bits hanging up on old coat hangers at the moment, couldn't lay my hands on any green caliper paint in a hurry so i went with red.. this officially makes me a ch@v now i suppose because this has no effect on the brakes at all an is purely cosmetic :p

make sure if you paint your calipers you don't get an paint in the the hydraulic fluid inions or threads!

more on this thread later..

Edited by TeflonTom
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i'll ask for you darren, i've got a pair of skoda calipers i could give them to them for the exchange units if needed..

anywho onto the brake pads.. basically you need to use the pads which are the correct fitment for the ford calipers, i always use mintex gear because i can get a very good price on it and i suppose i just stick with what i'm used to :giggle:

the pads are from a mk1 ford mondeo (1993 - 1999), all use the same pad except the v6 model, there are 2 types of pad listed for them depending on spec level of the vehicle.. mintex MDB1620 and MDB1622, essentially they are the same brake pad, but the 1622 version has a brake pad wear sensor cable attached, you can use either type of pad (whichever is cheapest i guess?) and just chop off the wear sensor if necessary.. these pads are available from most mainstream suppliers... pagid, unipart, ferodo, etc etc

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the 'standard' Mintex MDB1620 pads are about £18, but i decided to go for the M1144 'fast road' version of the same pad and they were £40.89 plus vat, they also do a M1155 'race' version too but i didn't check the price on those and they are not really suitable for use on the roads anyway.

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remember i said earlier about keeping a pair of the pads from the scrapyard caliper, it was handy to have them to hand so we could check them against the picture in the brake pad catalogue.. both pads are the same shape and thickness, but one has metal clip on the back which locates into the piston on the caliper, the pads are supplied as an axle set (2x plain ones, and 2x with clips)

word out.. more on this thread later...

Edited by TeflonTom
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it's worth using a new set of pad retaining springs too... Mintex part number MBA1187 sold as a pair

100_0805.jpg

haven't had a chance to do any more to this yet because my pickup is still in the paint shop :wonder:

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ok a few words on brake hoses, as luck would have it you can use the standard felicia front brake hoses on the ford calipers, however there are 2 types of brake hose listed for a felicia depending on which type the original calipers are, the vast majority use lucas calipers, and that is the hose type you need, basically the 2 hoses are the same length but the caliper end has a bulkhead fitting (shown below). although it may not be necessary to replace your brake hoses it seems a good idea to change them at this point. if you are going to re-use your hoses do all the usual checks, give them a good visual inspection, check for splits or nicks.. if in doubt chuck them away!

100_0806.jpg

felicia front brake hose end fitting, metric M10x1.0mm bulkhead fitting, convex... the convex end fits into the concave seat in the brake caliper fluid union

Edited by TeflonTom
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Great job!

I have same callipers ready, but i wass planing to use Renault discs which needed to drill the center bore cause its 61mm. Your solution is much better. Im looking forward to read about driving experience and if its fine im going to buy one. :)

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Great job!

I have same callipers ready, but i wass planing to use Renault discs which needed to drill the center bore cause its 61mm. Your solution is much better. Im looking forward to read about driving experience and if its fine im going to buy one. :)

I've been using this setup since august last year on a road rally car and it works brilliantly no probs at all for me apart from needing 14" wheels.. really it has to be problem free as everything fits with no mods needed (I'm using sierra calipers so no need to drill the lugs they just bolt on same as the skoda calipers did

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