Brake success!

At last all the pieces came together!
I assembled all the brakes part a couple of days ago and bled the brakes once. My daughter pumped the brake pedal and I opened and closed all the bleed nipples. The first test run was a disappointment! The brakes enganged very far down near the floor. So today I bled the brakes onece again. This time my wife pumped the pedal. I also used a one-way valve and had my wife pump the pedal with more force. More air bubbles came out and on the test drive the brakes felt OK. The ABS seems too work as does the ESP. I didn't want to push the brakes to much since you are supposed to run-in the brakes carefully the first kilometers. The car steers to the right, but this is expected since I have changed the front spindles and also mucked around with the rear wheels. I will have to do a wheel alignment of both the rear and front wheels. Don't know if I can do that myself or if I need a mechanic to do it for me.

It feels great to get the breakes together after two months of work!

Here are some pictures!

The front brakes...

... and with the wheel mounted.

The rear wheel

Detail from the rear brakes. Note the 1mm shim between the brake carrier and the adapter plate and the stuck wrech in the back ;-)

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A snowy A2 after the first succesful test drive

The next step will be to try to fit handbrake cables. Next year...

The misfit

I got the adapter plates from the machine shop this week. I would be lying if I said they fit perfectly :-(
Somehow I must have mis-measured or mis drawn on my CAD drawing almost 2mm on the mounting holes for the stub axle bolts!

Anyway, with a good power drill, anything can be fixed :-)

The left rear wheel is now mounted, with adapter, stub axle, hub, rotor, caliper, and new brake line with a flexible hose in the end. It looks beutiful, doesn't it!

Left to do is the right rear wheel, of course and get new handbrake cables that will fit the brake calipers. The cables for the drum brakes did not fit at all. I am hoping that Biltemas cheap (SEK 129, EUR 15) cables for Audi A3 and VW Golf among others will fit.

I had hoped I would get the car running this weekend. I had all the parts (at least I thought so) and I had the time. Well, it seems like the calipers from the Skoda Fabia which fit the spindles from the Skoda Fabia, which fit the Audi A2 beutifully, maybe aren't from a Skoda Fabia at all. At least did the brake pads for the Fabias C54-II brakes not fit at all. After a lot of trial and error on the Internet with different brake systems for VAG cars I now believe that the brakes are FN 3 from VW Golf V 2005 and later. Maybe they used those brake systems on Fabia and did not include that in the workshop manuals or the scrap yard sent me the wrong parts again. Anyway, since the brakes fit great and I have now found pads form them I will keep them. I'll just change the pads and the mounting kit.
This is what the front looks like with new rotors.

I compared the old and the new brakes. The old rotors weighs 4.9 kg and the new 7.2. Quite a difference! The calipers are also much bigger.

The new rotor to the left and the old to the right

Left: new caliper. Right: old

Ups and downs and poor suppliers

Today I had some ups and some downs.
I got the used calipers for Skoda Fabia from a scrap yard today. It tuns out one of the calipers won't fit the Fabia spindles. That one didn't have a tag so I guess the whole caliper might come from a different VAG car. Just to send it back...

The two calipers. Note the huge difference in distance between the mounting holes. The one on the right fits, the left one does not.

I also started taking off the right spindle without luck. First the screw for the rotor broke so I will have to get a screw remover for it. Next the steering joint came loose before I had unscrewed the nut and the female torx fitting in the bolt went round so it all goes round and round. Ahhhh! I will try to unscrew the nut with a impact wrench or just cut through the nut with an angle grinder.
I haven't got the rotors delivered yet so I can't assemble the whole thing, but I test mounted the one caliper that was right and checked the clearance to the rim. About 7mm! I won't have to buy new rims. Great!

7mm clearance between the caliper and the rim

Finally I test mounted the rear disc brakes, stub axle, wheel hub and rotor on the car and it looks great! This is still with the wooden adapter mockup, I will try to find someone to machine me an adapter in steel next week. Get new break lines with rubber hoses next to the calipers and new handbrake cables and that should be it!

The rear disc brakes assembled. Note the old drum brakes to the left and the old drum on the floor!