Saturday arrived, I was up early, had everything ready to go in the shop, turned the heat up to 62*, collectively gathered my thoughts and dove into the project.
Things were going really well until I arrived at the part where I swapped the A-Arms. Removing the old was easy, trying to get the spring back in with the new setup proved virtually impossible. I tried every combination of spring compressors, pry bars, etc. After fighting with the driver's side spring for around 4-5 hours with no joy, I decided since the bushings and ball joint were in good operable condition on the stock stamped LCA, I would just reinstall it...5 minutes later we were back in business.....or so I thought. Pulled one of the hubs out of the plastic and started packing grease in the bearings to assemble. Installed the inner bearing and seal and flipped the hub over for the outer bearing and, WTF...wrong bearing. I had ordered a SET 3(1LE hub) for the outer bearing and needed a Set 34(standard hub). Good lord, 100% my fault. At this point I was completely defeated, I did something I NEVER do, I got up, walked to the door and turned off the lights, didn't sweep, didn't pick up my tools, just left the mess in the dark.
After a shower, some pizza, and an adult beverage, I checked one of the local NAPAs. They of course had the correct bearings, I just had to wait until 11am Sunday to pick them up. Sunday morning arrived, I made my way out to the shop, picked up and sorted through the tools, did some sweeping, and prepared everything for round 2. At the end of the day, I had new LS1 12" rotor dual piston caliper brakes on both sides.
The actual brake upgrade side was done easily and could be accomplished in 2-3hrs taking your time. I still need to add in a turn stop as the OE unit has to be removed, check both sides for hose movement, bleed/flush the brake lines, and tighten up the driver's side LCA when I have weight back on the wheels.
The parts stash at the beginning of the project:
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OE Brakes - 10.5 rotor with a single piston caliper.
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Upgraded LS1 setup - 12" rotor with a dual piston caliper.
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Unmodified spindle:
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Modified spindle - OE caliper ears and turn stop trimmed off, two dust shield holes drilled out with a 13/32 drill bit and tapped to M12-1.75 threads.
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LS1 caliper bracket installed:
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Machined OE rotor/hub turned down to just a hub, installed with correct pre-load on the bearings:
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Completed passenger side:
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On a funny note, this dude has been riding around in the car since 2019 when I had it aligned. My alignment guy asked me to check the car the next day after I had brought it home, he figured it had fallen out on the road during the test drive, however. Well I did fall, but ended up laying near the spring on the LCA in a spot you can only see with the tire off and from a specific vantage point. We both got a good chuckle out of that one. I had spent about 10-15min looking for it in the engine bay and to see if it was still connected to the strut fasteners when he initially called.
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The end of the day I was rewarded with this sunset and some good food for the super bowl.
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