Doing brakes on a '95 legacy..
 

my mom's '95 legacy wagon is in dire need of new rotors and pads, so i'll be doing them tonight with el cheapo tire warehouse parts. does anyone have any tips or advice that would not be immediately apparent to someone who has already done SVX brakes? are the rear rotors at all tricky? i assume it's pretty straightforward..

-adam

The brakes are pretty much the same as the SVX's, although I can't remember offhand whether my wife's '95 Legacy has drums or discs in the rear.

The calipers swing away like the SVX's, and the rotors should be cake to swap. Just remember, please remember, to clean and grease the slides real well. Subaru's floating calipers are very prone to siezing if you don't make sure those slides are cleaned and greased correctly.

..do i clean them with the "brake cleaner" in a spray can? what do i grease them with? regular old grease?

-a

ps. this leg. has 4 discs.. i think some of them had rear drums, but not ours

Our last Legacy had four discs, and I'm almost certain that the rear calipers swung away the same as the fronts. The drum-in-disc parking brake does not complicate things at all - unless you have the parking brake actually set. ;)

As for cleaning, I use whatever I have laying around...brake cleaner, simple green, whatever. I make sure that all sliding parts are completely free of any stuck deposits - sometimes I have to use a little sandpaper or steel wool to get all the spots off. I clean the little rubber boots inside and out. I use my dremel with a wire wheel on the outer sliding parts. Then I seal it all back up with some brake caliper grease.

And even then, I've still had calipers get sticky and drag on the rotors...argh. I love Subaru cars, but that's an annoying trait, man...

Edit: The grease is important. Go to an auto parts store and get 'brake caliper grease.' It comes in little one-time-use tubes or big tubs with handy included brushes that get covered in the stuff while you store it. 'Regular old grease' will not work - at least reliably.

Another edit: Get some nitrile gloves - the blue ones. They're so worth it, especially when working on brakes. You can just slip them off and, viola, you have clean hands. After a brake job, that's more than a novelty. :D

Am I just brain dead or didn't your mom drive a Volvo? Anyway make sure the pads slide freely in the brakets, i'v had to file off alot of material of some pads to make them move well, of course I hope your acctually done with the job by now.

i nearly finished the same night i started, which is highly unusual for me.

i ran into a rather annoying issue: the front rotors that tire warehouse gave me were too big!! before i even installed them, i measured them against the old rotor and the new ones were about half an inch bigger in diameter.. i figured "well, if they still fit, i'll have a big brake kit!" but alas, the caliper wouldn't reach its mounting bracket over the larger disc.

when i was going through the part over the phone with the guy at tire warehouse, he asked me if the car had 14 or 15-inch wheels.. it has 15's and i told him as such.. i'm thinking that maybe i should've said 14? well, i'm exchanging the rotors for a set of 14" wheel parts and we'll see if it works..

the pads went in like butter.. i used the ultra-awesome "swing up the caliper" technique that subafreak showed me last time we worked on my car, and the pads are sitting pretty now.. just have to get that #$(^ rotor in..

-adam

well, in case anyone cares....

the front rotors didn't fit because i got the wrong ones.. when they asked me if the car had 14 or 15 inch wheels, i went outside, looked at the tires, and (correctly) said "15"

turns out that the car is set up to use the front rotors for 14" wheels. anyway, everything came apart and went back together very nicely.. without a doubt it was the best vehicle-fixing experience i've ever had and i'm pretty proud of the result.. everything is (relatively) clean and well lubricated, and the car stops very well now.

i still have to bleed the brakes, but i'm thinking that i'll just entirely replace the fluid.. but that's for another day

-adam

ps. yeah freak, she drives a volvo now but she never sold her old wagon.. it became the spare spare vehicle, but it'll likely be sold soon

Huh, OK, I just don't remember seeing at your house last time.
Anyway the rotor thing seems to be a common problem at auto parts stores. It seems that since about 95 even the L model Legacys came with 15in wheels and the only ones that use the bigger rotors are the GT's and the Outback. They should just ask you what model car you have or what the rotor diamiter is. I also belive that all the big rotor cars came with 2 piston calipers and the small rotor cars had 1 piston. In a strange twist, one day when I wasn't at work Roger had to put a caliper on a Imprezza L.
This car has the 15inch wheels on it and i'v had them send me the wrong rotors before becouse of it, anyway when Roger ordered the caliper they sent him a 2 piston one and it bolted right up and everthing seems to line up right.:confused: I noticed it about a month later when the car came in for an oil change that it had two different calipers on it.:rolleyes: Seems to stop fine.