Defender td5 upgrade to vented front brakes

tom1979 said:

Good point! We first noticed they were getting hot on a run last year from Bedford to Devon but put it down to all the roundabouts, certainly never noticed it before.

What’s the best way to test what it working and what’s not?

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discs will be shiny and obviously working

Thought this was about brakes overheating,if rod is not correct the return of fluid to master is restricted and can keep the brakes on a bit.
If they just don't fit !!!! A mate had this on his Disco rears the other day,they went back.There are some crap parts out there.

tottot said:

Thought this was about brakes overheating,if rod is not correct the return of fluid to master is restricted and can keep the brakes on a bit.
If they just don't fit !!!! A mate had this on his Disco rears the other day,they went back.There are some crap parts out there.

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Britpart or something similar?

Some unbranded items from the flebay.

tottot said:

Some unbranded items from the flebay.

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Lots of dodgy parts companies about now making stuff. We bought a water pump for a transit the other week the shaft was so bent the pulley couldn’t turn, luckily we hadn’t gone to the trouble of fitting it

tom1979 said:

Well we decided to fit them because we had them. Unfortunately lots of blue boxes and guess what, on one of the calipers one side the brake pad doesn’t fit.

Seriously Britpart, can you make anything of decent quality?!!! If I’d known it was Britpart I wouldn’t have ordered it but thought we’d at least give them a go. How wrong we were!

The kit came with standard EBC pads, but even the Mintex ones don’t fit in that place

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Those pads do not look to be the same, unless it is just the angle. The one nearest to the camera looks to be a slightly different shape and wider than the one at the rear but that might just be perspective.

Before blaming the calipers (although could well be them) I have had the same problem with genuine brake pads into genuine (original lockheed) calipers but not consistently. A quick file of the new pad solves the problem but I think quality control is just not what it used to be and the pads are just all slightly different sizes. Makes things very annoying.

dag019 said:

Those pads do not look to be the same, unless it is just the angle. The one nearest to the camera looks to be a slightly different shape and wider than the one at the rear but that might just be perspective.

Before blaming the calipers (although could well be them) I have had the same problem with genuine brake pads into genuine (original lockheed) calipers but not consistently. A quick file of the new pad solves the problem but I think quality control is just not what it used to be and the pads are just all slightly different sizes. Makes things very annoying.

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None of the pads fit in that side, they all fit everywhere else

tom1979 said:

None of the pads fit in that side, they all fit everywhere else

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If that is the case it probably is a poor casting on the caliper then. Looks like you options now are remove it all and return, carefully file/sand/reshape the caliper, or just accept that every time you swap the brake pads one of them will need to be filed down to fit. None of which are great options but unfortunately I am finding more and more parts need this before they will work. Nothing fits straight out of the box anymore!

tom1979 said:

None of the pads fit in that side, they all fit everywhere else

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send it back and get a replacement

jamesmartin said:

send it back and get a replacement

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I think that's what I'll do, and I'll ask them to check the pads fit both sides before sending anything else back out.

I fitted the same kit when doing my rebuild and had a similar problem with the pads not fitting I gave them a file on each side and job was a good one.

tom1979 said:

I think that's what I'll do, and I'll ask them to check the pads fit both sides before sending anything else back out.

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often i find pad sets a tad big a need a slight file but thats all and on both calipers , youve got to start with matched calipers it seems one of yours is poorly sized