Maintenance :: Changing FRONT Brake Pads for Beginners!

[jen'scooper]

Hi all, I was just doing the brakes on my girls 03 S with the help of the great write up (thanks a bunch) I didnt catch the special tool part for the rears ,until I was there and had my girlfriend run back to the write up to see if there is anything on why the rear piston is not compressing. Sure enough there was the answer . There is a harbor Freight near me so I'll run out and get one now. But can someone tell me how important it is to have the rotors turned at this time ( is it a waste to put pads on without turning the rotors)? and I noticed the slots for the brake sensor ,but he car seemed to have no sensor wires, only Flat tire indicator? is it an option for the 03) ? any help on this is appreciated ,Thanks Jason Miller AFM #171

[OctaneGuy]

MINI doesn't recommend turning the rotors as far as I know. They are a wear item and should generally be replaced after 2 or 3 brake pad changes.

Depends on how early build the 03 was, the sensor may not be there. I had a late build July build 2003 Cooper and it had the sensors, but that wasn't true for all 2003's. I believe you still have the front sensor, just not the rear.

Good luck!

Richard

Originally Posted by jen'scooper

Hi all, I was just doing the brakes on my girls 03 S with the help of the great write up (thanks a bunch) I didnt catch the special tool part for the rears ,until I was there and had my girlfriend run back to the write up to see if there is anything on why the rear piston is not compressing. Sure enough there was the answer . There is a harbor Freight near me so I'll run out and get one now. But can someone tell me how important it is to have the rotors turned at this time ( is it a waste to put pads on without turning the rotors)? and I noticed the slots for the brake sensor ,but he car seemed to have no sensor wires, only Flat tire indicator? is it an option for the 03) ? any help on this is appreciated ,Thanks Jason Miller AFM #171

[JakeBRG]

The dealer does it for routine maintenace due to the "soft" compound of the rotors. (Having rotors that are "soft" is what makes the Mini's stop so well and provides plenty of bite for the pads. So due to the composition, the rotors often bite into the rotor and create a ring or lip around the edge. Check to make sure the rotors aren't "lipped" (where the pad has embedded itself into the rotor and caused the outside of the rotor to have a raised edge). Also check for grooves in the rotor. I had about 68,000 miles on my 2003 MCS when my rotors where lipped.

On the rear rotors, chances are that you may not have to replace them as most of the stopping power comes from the front and they don't seem to wear as quickly. My MCS is an August build and I have both the front and rear sensors. At 74,000 m, I've replaced mine as they are slightly grooved and with 2 toddlers, my time is limited so I don't want to have to do it all over again later...

You can pick up some really cheap rotors and other Mini stuff at www.pelicanparts.com

Those Pelican guys are awesome. I got a 32.00 sensor at the dealer and then returned it after I discovered I could get the same one one for 14.00 from Pelican. Rotors where around 30.00 (Zimmerman) and Mintex Pads for around 25.00 or so. For around 80.00 bucks (with shipping too), I'm replacing the whole enchilada in the rear!

And before I forget, you may not need a fancy impact gun–if you get a breaker bar from Advance (gives you a little extra torque at the elbow), you can get those Torx bolts off. So try that before you get the gun and maybe save some dough. Just make sure you apply some of the threadlock (blue) when you put the Torx bolts back on so you can get them off later as they have a tendency to rust/fuse to the rotor.

Jake

[fprintf]

Breaker bar wouldn't do it on my car for the Torx bolts as the Torx just kept rocking out of the retainer screw. I couldn't apply pressure to the bar and keep the head in place at the same time. But a cheap hammer driven impact driver worked just great.

I replaced all my rotors as it is cheap enough to do, at $30 apiece or so.

[JakeBRG]

Besides an impact wrench and a breaker bar are must haves for the shade-tree mech. anyway!

Jake

[rjtrout2000]

Thanks for the write up!!!!!!

[JakeBRG]

For those of you who think they are having a bad day or ever stop in the middle of something that they have started on their car and shake their heads in submission under a towering wife with 2 toddlers clinging to her pant legs, smearing brake dust on her chinos while you smile and grope for another tool that is just out of your reach, I offer you this tale:

Friday: Parts arrive from PelicanParts.com

Saturday: Sick

Sunday: Feeling better but its raining outside

Monday 2pm: Feeling cocky because I have successfully done the fronts months ago in under 2 hours (which included trip to Advance for breaker bar), I told my wife that I knew what I was doing and it was cake and she could go to the gym and leave me with the boys.

245pm: Replace rotor, and after struggling with rotating the piston back into the caliper time seems to escape me.

3pm: Realize that I only ordered one rotor! (these things do not come in pairs like pads!) Phonecall to Pelican and I have rotor ordered. Consoled and told that driving with old rotor for a few days especially at the rear is not going to make a difference until I replace it.

330pm: Wife does the "Hey Honey how's it going and releases the monsters (er I mean toddlers into the yard) 20 month old jumps on my stomach, thereby releasing swallow of beer all over caliper causing me to yell as I bang my head against the rotor. 20 month old grabs pad carrier off box covering his paws in brake dust. 4 year old tattles of course on younger brother but decides he needs closer look too which results in the release of more brake dust onto little hands. Beer is now completely spilled and pooling into brake fluid puddle. My optimism is fading.

4pm: Wife collects children who are now clinging to pants transfering grime onto them. I haven't the heart to tell her.

5pm: Neighbor comes over with relief beer (he helps me with my car and owns a 85 1/2 911) Kids come out screaming "KEITH" (they really like him) and the pandamonia starts again.

530pm:Everything seems find until I realize I am turning the pad carrier sleeve bolt at a slightly off angle, thereby screwing up threads. Wife affectionately yells out the door at my point of realization: "Honey, how's it going?!" (Uncanny how these wives have this since of timing when we screw things up, huh?)

6 pm Neighbor (Keith) grabs die kit and I retap threads and remove flashing from bolt out of pad carrier.

630pm After several attempts to rethread pad carrier bolt into carrier, I realize I am just making it worse and it's dark.

7pm Tools put away. Neighbor comments that trip to WalMart for several pink flamingos will complete my yard as my Mini is still on jack stands.

Tuesday 8am Mini Parts Counter at Flow Mini "Sir, we do not have that bolt in stock, but we can order it and have it to you tomorrow for 30.00"
I beg, and it results in meeting a Mini tech who takes the bolt and tells me I really did a number on it. But he gives it a shot and puts it in his die and re-threads it. They really are great over at Flow Mini!

830am Flat tire on way home from dealer in minivan. Enthusiasm slightly faded.
845am Tire changed, back on the road

9am After long prayer to God and Smokey Yunick, the bolt starts and I can see thread after thread going inside the carrier– THE BOLT WORKS!! Neighbor and Flow Mini save shade-tree mechanic. I am happy again.

930am Everything's cool. Then I realize I still have that rear rotor to replace in a few days...

Wish me luck,
Jake

[S Curvz]

Congradulation on finishing one side. My experiance went very similar, however I didnt want to rehash it and put it in writing. Good luck with the other side.

[BlimeyCabrio]

Been there, felt that...

[JakeBRG]

And life is good. No more bolts going in funny. No more stripped threads. It was easy as pie this time. For those of you that don't know, I ordered only one rotor thinking they came in pairs like the pads (the description said 2 per axle and I assumed that was also the qty of the order). So a week went by before I got the other rotor.

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Mintex pads now offer the hole for the rear sensor, so you guys don't have to worry about tying any loose stuff up with zips.

But just replacing the sensor won't make the dash light go off – after wondering if I screwed up (which is often the case), I looked at Octane Guy's wonderful write up on changing the rear brakes and realized that you have to turn the key to the on position and hold down the flat tire sensor button until the light goes out (about 20 secs or so). And sure enough just like Octane says, it works. But my flat tire light came on right when the brake pad sensor went off. (I no longer have run-flats, so I'm a little skeptical of this sensor now). Turning the key off and back to "on" and depressing the flat tire sensor reset button made it go off again.

So there you go, no more lights on the dash.

Here is a link to Octane guy's rear brake pads write up:

http://www.northamericanmotoring.com...ad.php?t=43438

[Smokin_Joe]

Thank you for the write-up!

I used this as a guide today to do my wife's brakes on her '04 MCS! Much abliged!

Note: only snag I ran into is on the passenger side, the allen socket wasn't long enough..I tried 3 brands..it kept hitting the brake line...so, I just disconnected the line & bled the braks post install (prolly need some new fluid any how )

also, brembo rotors aren't as bad as someone posted in this thread..they're really nice
Joe

[DaveMo]

Thanks for the great write-up. I've changed a lot of brake pads in my day, but I still appreciated having some pictures and information before I did the first-ever brake job on my 05 Cooper S.

A couple of comments. The spring-wire thingies that are on each caliper: they clearly _don't _ hold the two parts of the caliper together as you stated. I don't know what they do, but it is clearly the bolts that hold the two parts together. Leaving a springie thing off the car entirely seems to have no detrimental effect - I did it by accident and only noticed it a week later when I kicked it when walking across the driveway. Although I'm not recommending leaving them off. Maybe they help with squeal or something.

What I am recommending doing is taking off the little torx-head screw that apparently holds the brake disc to the hub. As you mention, these things want to sieze up, and when they do, it makes disk replacement harder. While you're changing pads, take a few seconds to remove these screws, if you can.



The screw is shown in the picture above. I'm pretty sure all this screw does is hold the disk on while the car is being built- they put on the disk, hold it there with the screw until the caliper and wheel is bolted on. It's the wheel and lugs that hold the disk in place, not this little screw. I say, let's do ourselves a favor - -take these out while the car is still relatively new, and save yourself a big headache later. My car has never seen road salt or anything like that, it's only seen 30K miles, and one of these screws was so rusted up that I stripped the head trying to remove it. That one is still there. But the rest are safely in a little ziploc bag, so I can return the car to "stock" in 20 years when I make it a show car. (right)

Also, some important observations for the rear brakes. You don't really need that special tool to "screw in" the rear caliper pistons. Get a pair needle nose pliers and be prepared to push. Hard. At first, it doesn't seem like you're making any progress, then the thing will suddenly start to screw back into the caliper. Also, you don't really need anything fancy to make the pistons retract into the front calipers, either. I stuck a screwdriver--carefully--between the old pads and the rotor, before everything was unbolted, and pried the pistons back. You can also squeeze these in by hand if you need to.


As far as jacking up the car - It seems that the parking brake cables don't really have enough slack to alow the rear calipers to come off easily, unless the car is jacked up under the suspension. Put your jack up under the lower shock mount, or under the lower control arm. These aren't the factory approved jacking points, but I don't see how these will hurt the car. It's plenty strong enough there. If you do it that way, the cables have a little slack in them, and rear calipers will come off very easily.

Here's my jack, supporting the car at a point just inboard of the lower shock absorber mounting point. No damage done.

Also, on the rear pads the procedure is a little different. You can't just slip the new pads into place on each side of the disk, then slide the caliper over the pads. One pad on each side has to be installed into the caliper first. When you have these pads in hand, you'll see that one pad in each pair has a little clip on the back. You need to slide that pad down into the caliper, so that the clip slides over the lip on the edge of the caliper piston. Again, I don't know what purpose this serves, but whatever.

Like so. By the way, I think I've got too much blue antisqueal goop on there. A little goes a long way, and you dont want that cr@p getting onto the friction surfaces.

[Wongkid]

DaveMo - Thanks for the additional ideas. I just tried to change pads on my 2003 S - fronts were a snap, but unlike your experience, I bought the recommended "screw tool" and could not get the read calpiers to retract. With parking brake off, I tightened the tool, spun the handle and could not get it to retract. Lots of grunting and pressure and turning (clockwise) on the tool. Any idea on why? Another trick to get this real caliper (driver's side) to compress?

[kseckel99]

Thanks, I took the plunge and did my front brakes. After removing I figured that I still had life on them, but replaced anyway since I had the time. Not sure how long I had left, but I did have 46.8K on the brakes. So I figured since I bought new GreenStuff pads, I would replace them.
Did the front only and the first (right) took a little time (learning curve), but the front left I think I did it in about 30 min. at the very most. Even with the brake sensor wire.
Since I had a lot of wear still on the fronts, and I think they wear the faster of the two sets (correct?) I am going to hold off on the rears for a bit.

Thanks so much for the detailed plans. Only problem I had is when I looked at the pictures, it seemed like after you remove the retaining wire, the caliper should come right off. I finally figured out that I had to remove the 2, 7mm bolts and then it came right off.

[OctaneGuy]

Heh heh you're right. The sequence of pictures is reversed. Looking at my writeup I see that the caliper is removed, and then following it, the caliper is still in place as I show how to remove it with the 7mm bolts. I believe once these are removed that it still won't come apart until you remove the retaining wire. But if you remove the retaining wire first before removing the 7mm bolts as in the writeup, the wire seems to do nothing. It's obviously a safety clip should the 7mm bolts come loose.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to modify the article.

Richard

Originally Posted by kseckel99

Thanks, I took the plunge and did my front brakes. After removing I figured that I still had life on them, but replaced anyway since I had the time. Not sure how long I had left, but I did have 46.8K on the brakes. So I figured since I bought new GreenStuff pads, I would replace them.
Did the front only and the first (right) took a little time (learning curve), but the front left I think I did it in about 30 min. at the very most. Even with the brake sensor wire.
Since I had a lot of wear still on the fronts, and I think they wear the faster of the two sets (correct?) I am going to hold off on the rears for a bit.

Thanks so much for the detailed plans. Only problem I had is when I looked at the pictures, it seemed like after you remove the retaining wire, the caliper should come right off. I finally figured out that I had to remove the 2, 7mm bolts and then it came right off.

[kseckel99]

Originally Posted by OctaneGuy

Heh heh you're right. The sequence of pictures is reversed. Looking at my writeup I see that the caliper is removed, and then following it, the caliper is still in place as I show how to remove it with the 7mm bolts. I believe once these are removed that it still won't come apart until you remove the retaining wire. But if you remove the retaining wire first before removing the 7mm bolts as in the writeup, the wire seems to do nothing. It's obviously a safety clip should the 7mm bolts come loose.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to modify the article.

Richard

Richard,
The article did help out so much, so thanks again for doing it. After I figured it out (I had to get my large manual out and saw it there, it's just such a large book that I don't like to use it when I'm working, plus I tend to get pages dirty as I go. ).
I am going to wait for quite awhile to tackle the rears. I had so much wear left on the fronts that I am going to try to go another 10K at least before I do the rears. In a worst case scenrio, the rear brake wear indicator come on. But I bought two in case I needed them.

[flcuenco]

Hi everyone...

I have a 2002 Cooper S and need help on how to have rear brake pads installed. Does anyone have any tips?

[OctaneGuy]

I see this is your first post, so I will exercise more patience. Welcome to NAM. At the end of my article--the first post of this thread is the link to the rear brake pad article is here

http://www.northamericanmotoring.com...345#post550345

Originally Posted by flcuenco

Hi everyone...

I have a 2002 Cooper S and need help on how to have rear brake pads installed. Does anyone have any tips?

[mscmagno]

question, for Mini Cooper 2003 Type S owner, does 2003 have break pad warning light and what it looks like? i did check my speedmeter and RPN for symbols and i dont see any for brakes? can somone tell if 2003 typeS have a worn break indicator.

[OctaneGuy]

I believe it was 2002 and early model 2003's that didn't have the brake sensor. What build month do you have?

Richard

Originally Posted by mscmagno

question, for Mini Cooper 2003 Type S owner, does 2003 have break pad warning light and what it looks like? i did check my speedmeter and RPN for symbols and i dont see any for brakes? can somone tell if 2003 typeS have a worn break indicator.

[mscmagno]

ohh gee no idea, where can i find the month , all i know its 2003, sorry for the dumb question,

[OctaneGuy]

Open the drivers side door and look at the sticker. It says. This is what mine says---April 2005 build.

Originally Posted by mscmagno

ohh gee no idea, where can i find the month , all i know its 2003, sorry for the dumb question,

[mscmagno]

i did check it and it says 09/02 that men my mini is 2002 not 2003??

[OctaneGuy]

yep although you do have a 2003 model it was built in late 2002 so you probably don't have the sensor. the only thing im not certain of is whether you don't have both front and rear sensor or any sensor altogether. For some reason I thought the earlier builds still had the snesor just not front and back.

Originally Posted by mscmagno

i did check it and it says 09/02 that men my mini is 2002 not 2003??

[mscmagno]

so i guess the only why knowing it is brining it to a dealer and ask them to check. well thanks for you time then. what does the break pad light indicator look like tho? or does it show on the screen where you kilomeeter or temprature shows.