A Kiwis Series 3

[DWNUNDR]

nice work

[Casey]

Very impressive work Jesse

[Hobbawobba]

I can see a lot of hard work there Jesse, not sure I understand all the terms though It all looks clean & shiny that i s the main thing

Just nodding in agreement aye, Pete?

Thanks again guys.


So after all that diff-whoring I done in my last post. Whilst the whole lot was apart, I thought it would be a great idea to rebuild my rear brake calipers and paint them up. I bought an OEM rebuild kit from Atkins Rotary a few years ago. It even comes with large rubber boots which cover the handbrake mechanism and clips to go with it. Mazda UK might be able to get these if you try.



This was the worst offender. My other caliper handbrake mech was quite clean. Piston seal groove was nasty on both calipers though. Both pistons were in quite good condition, minus the small pitting in the below picture. Both pistons were full of that gunk in the last picture which was pretty nasty








Got the caliper all cleaned up and painted with some VHT caliper paint. I used the ultrasonic at work to clean it somewhat. PLENTY of compressed air, WD40 and brake cleaner with a rag until the bearings cleaned up and spun smoothly! Then some PTFE/Teflon lube to finish it off .



Cleaned up all the internal bits. The rebuild kit came with a new O ring in the first pic. Greased up the handbrake mechanism with red rubber brake grease. 500g tub for about £10 should last me a lifetime or two. Getting the handbrake bits all back together was quite fiddly and frustrating . New rubber boot back over the caliper along with the new clips installed! Looking much better! . I also put some brand new EBC discs and pads on the rear to top everything off.





Brake caliper rebuild - done.

[Casey]

You can't beat a brand-new looking rebuilt caliper - nice work Jesse, that's quite a transformation

[Hobbawobba]

So now the progress/refurb posts are done.

Getting the axle in to the car was a MASSIVE rush as I had a lot to get done. There was a 7's day meet on the Saturday down near Glastonbury which I really wanted to attend, and I hadn't built my diff up yet. I spent Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday nights building my LSD up - until about 2am each night. Up for work at 6am each morning also. See previous posts for some of what was involved . I got home on the Friday at about 4pm to find JamieR and GT James at my house, ready to help me get all of this stuff installed and back on the car!

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of this process as we were in such a rush. They hung around until maybe 9pm and helped more than I can put in to words. I stayed out at the car until maybe 10.30pm trying to get as much as possible installed/torqued/filled up

I woke up at around 6am on 7's day, then went straight out to the car in an attempt to finish this and make the ~2 hour drive down to the location! I still had quite a lot of small jobs that needed sorting out. JamieR showed up at my house as he was in for the trip down! We eventually got it all finished up enough to start out journey down! Woooooooo! . This was about 9.30am from memory. Better late than never! We took a nice road down to GT James' house to make sure the diff wasn't munted and to give anything a chance to fall off then, rather than on the motorway!

WE MADE IT! A pretty uneventful drive down the motorway. I didn't want to give the car too much abuse as I hadn't driven in for a good while and wasn't sure if anything would break/come loose. Throw a few pulls in the mix.

Zesty Media snapped a couple of pics of us arriving




It was a pretty great day out. It was nice to see Pete again! Met some really good people there also! We also took a drive over to Cheddar Gorge. This is where things got interesting. Going slowly behind busy traffic up the main, steep and bendy part of the road. The 7 starts to buck back and forth! It felt as if the diff was locking up as such a slow speed with a large load on it. Then the engine stalled out and wouldn't bloody start back up . Uh o! JamieR jumped out of the car and started directing traffic around me. A Helpful biker made sure there was space down the hill further, so I could roll backwards around the sharp bend and have somewhere to park up. Considering the situation I was now in - it all went smoothly.

Managed to roll down (backwards) and park up. Opened the bonnet and checked if anything was loose/broken, checked the diff wasn't leaking, and generally making sure nothing obvious was wrong. I couldn't find anything! PLENTY of curious onlookers as it was a VERY busy day hahaha. No phone signal to call anybody. Then after what seemed like forever (10-15 mins), Jamie reached in my window and cranked the car. It started right up!!! About 10-15 rock climbers halfway up a rock face gave a great cheer! . Gained some speed before the steep/sharp bend and made it up okay! I think the new diff was locking up and caused the engine to stall out and flood slightly. Then as it was hot, it evaporated out after sitting for a while.


This gave a us a bit of a shock, so we decided to catch up with GT James and head back home. We took it as a sign


Had a nice drive home with James. Having a bit of fun between us on the way. Suddenly saw a black FD in my rear view on the motorway which wasn't at the meet. So had a few pulls with him. His reaction was priceless and seemed so happy to see us hahaha. . Got home safely. That was a LONG and tired day.

Big thanks to those who helped me during this round of mods aye! It was a pretty intense lot to get through aye.

[DKWW2000]

"Got the caliper all cleaned up and painted with some VHT caliper paint. I used the ultrasonic at work to clean it somewhat. PLENTY of compressed air, WD40 and brake cleaner with a rag until the bearings cleaned up and spun smoothly! Then some PTFE/Teflon lube to finish it off ."

Plenty of clean shiny sparkling parts there Jesse, & the satisfaction that you refurbed them, no better feeling -

[Hobbawobba]

Although the OS Giken LSD says you don't need to run it in. It was so expensive that I didn't want to risk it . I drove it fairly reasonable for a week when I got back up and running. Gave it the jandal on my way to work though . Ironing out a few bits and pieces that I had messed around with during the last lot of modifications. Started to test the diff out more and more each time I drove it. It was feeling pretty good so far.

My bro in law popped over and we went out for a spin. It started raining which was typical, so couldn't get my foot down too much. Had a BMW right up my ass on the way to JamieR's house. Downshift - foot down - See-ya! Took the long way back to Worcester. My bro in law took a few little clips on our journey. Here they are, badly edited together



The next day was my brothers birthday. I picked up the boys to meet him at the pub for lunch. Just after I picked them up, as I was leaving Worcester.







Shit.

Thankfully I have some great friends. Steve-A came to rescue me in his Fiat 500. I wasn't far from home which was very lucky. The little Fiat done a great job at towing also

[gt_james]

Sad times, but I'm sure it'll be back up and better in no time!

[Casey]

On no! Sad to see that Jesse, after all your hard work, there's even more work to do now

[DKWW2000]

Sorry to see that Jesse Any idea what could have caused it? Not seen one fracture there before.