All posts tagged brakes

Installing Brake Pads and Bleed Brakes

In a previous post, we had replaced the rotors and brake calipers in the Miata, and this one describes changing the brake pads and bleeding the brakes. You need to bleed the brakes if you change the calipers. You must buy DOT-3 brake fluid, 2-3 cans just in case, from your local parts store.

Details on the front brake pads change can also be found in an earlier post.

Installing New Rotors and Brake Calipers

In an earlier post, we had done a front brake pads change in the Miata, but while doing that change realized that one of the bolts slipped because the threading in the calipers was damaged. So we ended up doing a complete front and rear caliper replacement using remanufactured stock calipers from RockAuto. The good thing about these new calipers was that they were painted red which would look great on our car. In this post, we demonstrate how to go about removing and installing calipers. This work was done in August 2020, but we only found time a year later to write this post. I spent hours editing the photos.

This post outlines the installation of new rotors and brake calipers for both front and rear of the car, and it has a lot of pictures. You may find that installation of the front calipers may have been demonstrated on Youtube but it has not been done for rear calipers.

The next post outlines how to do the brake pads, and bleed the brakes.

Changing Brake Pads on the Porsche Boxster S

The Porsche Boxster S came with brakes that squealed when you drove it to a stop, so it was in desperate need of change of pads. Finally, I spent the ~$400 and purchased original Porsche brake pads from Pelican Parts. Turns out compared to changing the brake pads on the Miata it is much easier to change it on the Porsche Boxster S.

Changing the Front Brake Pads

The Miata had gone two years without any brake changes by me, and having never done it before I thought it would be a good idea to learn how to change brake pads. This would be a skill very useful before going on the track or for an autocross event. In this post, I demonstrate how to change the front brake pads.

Fixing the Parking Brake

The Miata’s hand brake (or e-brake or parking brake) did not keep the car still. The car would move anyway, so I used to keep it in gear when I parked it. It was time to fix the parking brake before I took the car to the DMV for getting the emissions inspection sticker later this week. Fixing the parking brake is quite easy, but it requires removal of the rear wheels.