Last week I ordered a set of Centric high carbon rotors and Hawk HPS pads in a package deal from KNS Brakes and was eager to get them installed this past weekend along with a brake fluid flush and bleed. Well, that eagerness turned to complete frustration and a slew of F-bombs in a quick hurry. I ended up snapping both caliper bolts on the RR and one on the LR. The LF it seemed as though the PO used some anti-seize on those bolts so they came out like butter. The RF on the other hand, I again had issues with one bolt. This time not snapping the bolt, but slightly stripping the threads on the caliper and chewing up the bolt at the same time. I guess it's a fairly common issue on these Brembos from the research I've done. A steel bolt in an aluminum caliper = mad corrosion, with the bolt essentially welding itself to the caliper. I tried heat, PB Blaster, cutting a "channel" for a flat head screwdriver, you name it...no luck getting them to budge. Not one bit. I ended up using a tap and die on the RF that had stripped out and that made it good as new. I took both rear calipers to the local machine shop and had them drill the broken bolts out and helicoil the caliper bolt holes. It cost me 60 bucks to have them make the repair, but that sure beats replacing two Brembo calipers...I'm glad it worked out. When I reassembled everything, I was sure to use some high temp copper anti-seize on the bolts so I never have to relive this nightmare again! A piece of advise: Remove your Brembo caliper bolts ASAP and lather them up with some anti-seize before it's too late! Anybody else been down this road before?
Oh I have. Spend a whole day one weekend. Drilling out and retapping the hole on my LR caliper when I did the sti driveline swap on my wrx. Was a grand old time.
Fun stuff! I had never heard of this happening so I wasn't anticipating dealing with such a pain-in-the-ass-situation. Should have been easy, routine maintenance.
Yea I had heard of it but of course I had that "It would never happen to me" mentality. Coincidentally I also snapped a bleeder off on that same caliper before It ended up being replaced with another used caliper before it was sold a couple winters ago.
It just wouldn't be a Subaru unless this happened to you. It happened to all 4 of mine when I was changing the rotors last summer. What a pain in the a**!
I lucked out on my 08 STI, every brembo bolt came out clean Didn't hurt that the car came from Las Vegas and only saw ~1 month of snow under my ownership. I also copper anti-seized the crap out of the bolts for the future.
I feel your pain joebush44, (although not nearly as much as you I'm sure), as I have been steadily, mildly upgrading brake parts on my '12 Sti. I thought I would get lucky, and not pull threads when I went to pull the calipers off; but NOPE. On the very last bolt on the driver front caliper, the threads decided to come with it. Time-Sert kit, and a former machinist for a dad to the rescue...
