H & R Spacer Install Report, tried today...more tools required Options

[jgreening]

I got my new wheels mounted and balanced today so I thought I would take a few hours to mount my H & R spacers. I bought the spacers that require the use of replacement studs. If you get this type of spacer, let me report that this is not a hassle free job. My recommendation is for people to buy the type of spacer that allows you to use the stock studs to mount the spacer and then the wheel mounts to new studs that come with the spacer and are placed "inbetween" each of the existing studs. The smallest spacer H & R makes with this "easier type" is 25 mm and that was bigger than I wanted to go with my application.

On to the install. This is a how-to for just the front brake because that is all the further I got today:

(1) remove the old wheel.
(2) remove the whole brake assembly. There are four bolts on the back of the brake assembly. Two are for removal of the mechanism that holds the pad and two remove the entire caliper and brake assembly. You need to remove the lower two that hold the entire brake assembly.
(3) once the two bolts are removed, the brake assembly slides right off. The brake lines are still connected and I didn't want to remove those so I just placed the assembly on top of the wheel.
(4) With the brake off, the rotors must be removed. There is a large nut (30 mm) in the center of the wheel that holds the rotor on. That large nut is secured first with a cotter pin that must be removed.
(4) Once the cotter pin is removed, the 30mm nut must be removed. This was very difficult even with a large breaker bar - but I finally got it off.
(5) Having removed the nut, I noticed that the internal part of the rotor is friction mounted and does not simply slide off. I then noticed that that there are three holes in the hub which are placed there for the use of a pully puller. Of course, I didn't have one of those. I assume that using the pully puller will allow the hub and rotor to come off in one piece.
(6) Once the rotor is off, I assume that there will be some kind of hub on the back of the rotor that will come off so that I can get to the studs. Unfortunately, I did not get that far yet.

Thats all for now. Will update more later.

- Jay.

This post has been edited by jgreening: Aug 17, 2005 - 12:58 AM