heinzboehmer's 2002 Topaz 6MT Coupe

[maupineda]

Heinz, who did you commission to machine out the brackets?

[heinzboehmer]

Heinz, who did you commission to machine out the brackets?

I got them manufactured through Protolabs. Chose the longest lead time they offered to get the cheapest price. Came out to around $1k.

Went with Protolabs because that was the best balance of price and lead time out of the typical big online manufactuters. There were WAY cheaper options (almost exclusively overseas), but none of them would tell me the composition of the material they would be using, so I decided against them.

Of course, someone recommended this place a few days after I placed my order with Protolabs: https://www.rapidaxis.com Local, all machining done in house and comparable prices. I would have gone with them had I known about them earlier. Oh well.

I'll likely be using them for powder coating and maybe even for 3D printing the molds for the CF cabin air filter housing and firewall plug (since they're too big for my printer and would need to be printed in sections).

Anyway, this is likely a way more detailed answer than what you were looking for, but it reminded me of some details I had yet to document. I'll also be posting a detailed cost breakdown of everything once it's all finished.

[heinzboehmer]

Timeserts installed and fitment of hardware validated with 3D printed fasteners:




Looking good!

I need to temporarily swap back to the stock airbox this week for, uh, no reason. I'll likely bond this in when everything is out.

[bavarian3]

So this is what I saw when I took a quick look at the calipers yesterday morning:



As mentioned before, not super alarming, but still wanted to figure out why some bleeders appeared to be leaking.

Decided to remove all the bleeders and reclean the taper that they seal against. Calipers were fully dry when installed, so there was a possibility that some dirt/debris I hadn't been able to clean out had accumulated around the taper and was making the bleeders not seal well.

After doing that, I pressure tested them by pushing on the brake pedal as hard as I could for ~30s. Found no leaks on any of them

At the same time, I also decided to cut the dust caps in half, as I don't really like the design of them. Having the retaining ring sandwiched between the bleeder and caliper makes it hard to feel the torque on the bleeder and also means that the dust cap gets caught and spins around.

[ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"20230829_192052.jpg",":23133 1}[/ATTAH]

Left a little tab of material to make it easy to pull them off.

When I went to reinstall them, I realized why I had seen brake fluid pooled around the base of the bleeder. Here's what happens when you install them:

[video=youtube;522CzbLwKpA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=522Czdeo]

As you can see, installing the dust cap forces any brake fluid left in the bleeder past the threads. Makes sense since these things seal at the bottom taper and not on the threads. Something like this is what's happening:

[ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"51vl5p0C-achmentid":231332}[/ATTCH]

This was super easy to see with the dust caps cut in half, but much harder when they're installed unmodified. So leading theory is that when I initially bled the calipers, there were no leaks, but there was some brake fluid left in the bleeders that was pushed out by the dust caps. This must have pooled under the dust cap retaining ring —making it hard to see when cleaning up— and eventually dripped out when I took the car out for a drive.

Anyway, mystery solved and fortunately there aren't any leaks on my calipers!

Fantastic info! Thanks for the investigative work.

[heinzboehmer]

Fantastic info! Thanks for the investigative work.

Glad I could help!