help required mk1 front brakes

[gtimk5]

Not sure what the thinking was Pete. I dont think heat would be different. Maybe they expected the petrol ones to be harder on pads thus the thicker pads? On the 1500 Passats it was the same. The sedans had the thin pads whereas the wagons had the thicker ones.

[deskpotato]

well, you were a great help there pete, got the pads in and definitely db105's, there was a bee's **** in it, no way would larger pads fit... however, i did manage to screw up with the disc rotors, the rotor screw on the first one i tried was apparently made out of silly putty and burred when i tried to unscrew it... gonna have to take it in somewhere and get it tapped out when i can find a replacement screw. must have rusted in or something like that. anyway, the brakes work great now even with the old discs, no more grinding metal sound... cheers mate...

p.s. and yes, they are 15mm bolts, which is weird, had to go buy a socket for them....

[gldgti]

well, you were a great help there pete, got the pads in and definitely db105's, there was a bee's **** in it, no way would larger pads fit... however, i did manage to screw up with the disc rotors, the rotor screw on the first one i tried was apparently made out of silly putty and burred when i tried to unscrew it... gonna have to take it in somewhere and get it tapped out when i can find a replacement screw. must have rusted in or something like that. anyway, the brakes work great now even with the old discs, no more grinding metal sound... cheers mate...

p.s. and yes, they are 15mm bolts, which is weird, had to go buy a socket for them....

if you get an old, large screwdriver and hammer it into the screw, you might get it out.

[gldgti]

Ahh , but which is better?

What was the thinking at the time? There can't have been much of a price difference.

Do you think that they were aiming to keep the discs in their ideal operating temperature range or were thay just trying to save a dollar?

Given that a 12mm disc can be machined down to 10mm and a 10mm disc can be machined down to 8 what are the implications?

As they're the same diameter and swept area the braking effect should be the same so it must have something to do with heat dissapation and generation.

Was the theory that the petrol cars went harder and that they'd heat their brakes up more?

Did the diesels go so slow their brakes never got up to temp?

The diesels had slightly heavier motors and different front springs, does this come into the equation?


Arggh so many questions


Pete

hmmm

i dont think the engine weight would make much of a difference - we're talking 10-20kg's. i doubt it would be a dollar saving thing.... there would be some engineering reason - but as to what that is, i think we could only speculate.... maybe because the petrol model had more potential to be hotted up and go faster? nah...

i dunno.

[deskpotato]

good idea gld.. i'll try that. couldnt 'f it up much more and getting a place to drill and tap it will be expen$ive....

[Peter Jones]

An impact screwdriver will get it out. You can pick them up pretty cheap these days, try supercheap auto. They look like this.



And you use it like this



Or just drill the head off. Once the disc is off they usually came out easily.

Pete

[Golf Loon]

Plus the fixing screw is only to make putting the wheel on easier. Once the 4 wheel studs are on, the disk aint moving.

[deskpotato]

cheers once again guys, mitre 10 wants $40 for the impact s/d, so i'll head up to supercheap and see what they want for one... will update ....

[Peter Jones]

You can always drill it out. It isn't required to make the car operate.

As Matt said it's only there as a convenience so the disc doesn't move around when the wheel is off.

There's plenty of Golfs running around without that screw.

Pete