today is the day where the hilux officially becomes a Roam Overlanding vehicle
so we are done and dusted here at Branding Zone and to be honest i'm really happy with how it
looks we also got a couple little individual transfer stickers of the actual rom overlanding
logo so if you ever out and about and you ever see their own vehicle or you know you meet me in
person i'll always have some of these available with me so if you want ask one and i'll be
happy to give you one but anyways let's head over now and we can go and start working on installing
the new brakes welcome to another episode of roam over landing my name is Adrian Abrahams
and last week we head over to Fox South Africa to upgrade the suspension on the hilux now we
get to visit the Power Brake factory and actually end up installing a big brake kit on the Hilux
the life of a Power Brake kit generally begins as an aerospace aluminium billet which
gets meticulously crafted by state-of-the-art multi-axis cnc machines working within micron
tolerances to create only the highest quality components and all of this adds up to them
being one of the top brake manufacturers in the world and that all started here in South Africa
17 years ago now they are fitted on over a quarter of the vehicles in the dakar rally
and have placed in the top three for seven seasons and even had a victory last year all
of that came out of this facility created by the very same machines that make their big brake kits
their discs are manufactured out of a proprietary high carbon cast iron alloy that is incredibly
durable and stable under high thermal loads and come in both their affordable standard diameter
bolt-on kits or their high-performance big brake kits however they both share many of the same
qualities the components are hand assembled to ensure the quality of each individual kit
which are hard anodized with carefully selected colors to ensure maximum UV and temperature
resistance to prevent color fading over time I must say it's been really incredible to see
the attention to detail that Power Brake have throughout the manufacturing process
and it makes me proud to know that this level of craft exists in South Africa but i don't
think this is the limit for them because their development continues daily creating systems
for new vehicles and pushing the limits of their engineering even further to constantly
keep bringing their incredible quality to the world podiums and your vehicle alike and getting
to tour their facility has been an absolute privilege and now I have a chance to test it all
for myself I cannot wait to get back to the workshop and install my big brake kit on the hilux
today we're going to be installing the big brake kit from Power Brake on the Hilux
so let's have a little look at what's hiding inside the box here
some very beautifully packaged things here what is in box number one oh beauty incarnate itself
these are the new calipers going on let's see let's get this thing open as soon as possible look
at this baby that is beautiful so when we were at the Power Brake factory we saw how these actually
get machined out of solid blocks of aluminium and it's super impressive to see it once it's been
anodized the brake pads are in everything i can't believe this is actually going on the vehicle
it doesn't look like it's going to fit it looks way too big okay next up a much lighter box
got a little bit of brake fluid here we've got the braided brake hose
the brackets for mounting the caliper and just some little bits and bobs to help us
out during the installation then we got this monster oh look at the size of this thing
this is going to be the new brake discs going on thing is insane oh gosh so we're also going
to be installing uh the standard diameter brake kit on Roelfs bakkie so we're going to get to
see a difference between the big brake kit and the standard diameter kit I'm keen to see just
how different it is and we're going to have a look and see i mean just look at this on there
i mean it's kind of ridiculous but i love it anyways let's uh let's open Roelfs one and
then we can get the whole installation started now Roelfs standard diameter kits is certainly a
lot less complicated than the big brake kit and only really has two components an axle matched
set of discs and the brake pads which have been specially selected for 4x4 use now once we have
the two kits unboxed you're really gonna get to see the difference between the standard diameter
and the big brake kit both have the spiral slots for removing debris and water but the big brake
kit has large curved cooling vanes for improved cooling and is quite a bit larger i think it'll be
interesting to see the difference in performance over the long run this is something that if you
are technically savvy you could do this upgrade on your own as long as you're confident I would
say if you're not so technically savvy still seek you know professional assistance with something
like this there are plenty of places where they can help you with your power brake upgrades
today I'm here at roof's little workshop and we've got Cornel busy helping me he is the mechanic here
he's going to be doing all the stuff and I'll just kind of be talking you guys through the process
so we ended up pulling off the splash guard completely while by pulling i mean cutting
um but you know it's that or it's removing all the wheel bearings and going through that whole schlep
of having to do that and right now we don't really need to do that it's a bit overkill plus the
fact that you know that splash plate is actually creating a bit of a tiny spacer anyway so it just
makes sense you're gonna have to cut it anyway might as well we're just busy polishing the hubs
at the moment it's critical that the surface is spotless because when you put the disc on it needs
to be able to mount flush and perfectly otherwise what's gonna happen is after a couple thousand
kilometers you're gonna start experiencing something called brake judder and it's just
from that vibration over time from having that little bit of flex between the disc and the hub
is gonna cause those problems so obviously by getting in there cleaning it up nicely having
it shiny you know that the surface is perfect for once we put everything together now we are pretty
much ready to go and to start finishing up the installation we can put the new disk on we can put
the new caliper on and then we can start bleeding and getting on with the whole process now for the
moment of truth getting to see this epic kit on the vehicle now the installation process isn't
necessarily complicated because there are detailed instructions however there are certain things
that just must be done absolutely correctly and one of those is making sure the caliper bracket
is correctly torqued to the vehicle and that the caliper itself is perfectly torqued to the bracket
but from this point it's just a matter of connecting the stainless braided brake line
and then carefully reattaching all of the brake lines and abs brackets so we've gone ahead
everything's installed now we've run the brake the new brake line so it's actually a stainless
braided brake line so that's actually going to change your brake pedal response
when you're driving it's going to because think about it it's not rubber anymore so when you
push the rubber the rubber will expand it's a lot tighter so you're going to get a bit more
of a firm brake pedal all that's left to do now is bleed the brakes there's a bit of a sequence
to do once that's done we take it out on some of the corrugated roads around here and just kind of
let everything jiggle around a little bit we pull it back in we bleed it one more time now from that
point the bedding process begins so now that is about 300 kilometers of just normal driving you
don't want to be harsh on the brakes the pad needs to kind of embed itself properly on the disc and
they need to just kind of i think there's a bit of a transfer of material and things like that that
needs to happen in that process once those 300ks are done then you do about six hard stops in a row
where you really just kind of heat up and cool heat up and cool heat up and cool brake discs
and from that point onwards your brakes a bit in you can drive just normally from that point
so we've had a very fun time bleeding the whole system it's quite a tricky thing sometimes and
it's just something you've just got to just try and keep doing and keep doing and keep
doing and keep doing but we've gotten it to a point where we're comfortable with it
we're going to pull it out now we're just going to do a little bit of driving up and down
just to try and shake some of the bubbles out of the system leave it one more time and we should be
good to go to get out of here for today we've been here a little bit longer than anticipated
so we'll have to catch up and install roof setup tomorrow so it's definitely feeling a lot
better so all we're going to do is we're going to do one final bleed we've managed
to get some of the paint off of the brakes now and we're pretty much ready to rock and roll
we've had a super long day here at the workshop everyone's exhausted it is uh 9 30. it doesn't
normally take this long to install the kit and to bleed the whole system and all that stuff but
you know we want to do it nicely we took it slowly we're obviously filming and all that stuff
but you know what I'm going to head out now we're going to come back tomorrow we're going to install
roofs standard diameter power brake kits and it's going to be very interesting to compare the two
and see what each of them all about but anyways guys cheers so we've had a bit of dramatic weather
recently um but we are ready to go for round two Roelfs Bakkie is inside the workshop
we're going to get to work on it he's got a Hilux 2.8 legend 50. for those of you guys who are
outside of South Africa that's our like kind of limited edition special edition Hilux we're going
to be installing these standard diameter brake kits on his vehicle from power brake and we're
gonna really be able to have a good look between the big brake kit and his kit and see some of the
differences between the two and you know if you're looking for an upgrade for your own brake setup
you'll be able to decide which one is going to suit you best the wall thickness of the rotor
is much thicker on the power brake one than the wall thickness of the standard rotor so
therefore it can absorb more energy and heat so the difference in the installation process is you
don't have to change the brake caliper therefore you don't have to disconnect the brake lines
therefore there's no bleeding so it's simple take the caliper off it's mounting keep the brake lines
connected pop the disc off polish the wheel hub put the new disc on put the caliper back pop the
new brake pads in and that's it so this caliper as per Toyota specifications needs to be talked
to 197 newton meters it's been surprisingly easy to install the standard diameter kits but i mean
it makes sense it's a direct bolt-on kit you don't have to worry about modifying or chopping anything
it just goes straight on and i mean it's already going to be a big improvement over the standard
Hilux brakes the stand and highlights brakes have not changed for years and they are generally known
for not being the best out there they expect more for longevity and reliability and things like that
not necessarily for performance so when you upgrade to something like a power brake kit
you're going to get improved performance you're going to get improved cooling you're going to get
all sorts of improvements like but i would rather have better braking when i need it
you know also Roelf's bakkie is slowly going to start getting more and more accessories on it
and having the increased weight is going to put increased strain on the brakes and it's just one
of those things the same like what I've done with my vehicle obviously the big brake kit is in a
bit of a different league the big brake kit pulls us inspiration from Dakar racing it's a beautiful
specimen of engineering for sure but is it a little bit overkill for what I'm doing probably
because I'm not going super fast but for me the way i look at it having an automatic vehicle
my brakes have to work extra over a manual so if I'm doing hard four by fouring and we've got steep
declines and things like that the chance of me experiencing brake fade is very slim because of
the bigger brakes because of the over engineering there because of the improved cooling and you can
see the difference between the two different brake discs from the standard diameter to the big brake
kit it's significantly bigger the materials are thicker the spacing for air is bigger the surface
area we've got six pistons in there versus the four on the standard diameter for the brake pads
so it can grip harder and you'll see on both of these brake discs though is they've got
these nice little grooves in the actual disc in the contact area and what that's going to do is
going to help flick off dust and dirt and any sort of debris that gets onto the disc
so it is going to give you improved braking performance even when driving through muddy
areas water you know dust sandy things just everything like that so off-road
these kits are that's what they're designed for you think that it's a performance setup
it's Power Brake you know they they they do a lot of racing and a lot of track stuff
but actually this new line of theirs is is really kind of focused towards off-road vehicles
and they're really specializing in that and i think that history and that lineage with Dakar
really shows that they know what they're doing when it comes to performance and reliability at
the same time so look I'm keen we've got to do our betting in process it takes a bit of time
so we'll have to meet back with you guys we'll see you guys again soon
so that's that for now i've done the betting in process and I've completed my six emergency stops
and i really wish i could show you the vehicle right now but so much has happened in this past
week during the betting process that you're just gonna have to stay subscribed and stay tuned for
the next episode where you get to see a little bit more of what's been cooking with this vehicle
but guys this has been very fun especially you know this is our second part of the performance
upgrades to the Hilux and it's all been in preparation for what's to come next a little
bit further down the line we will be doing some power upgrades to the vehicle and increasing the
performance of the vehicle so in combination with having a heavy vehicle wanting to get a bit more
power out of the vehicle having stopping power just really makes sense at the end of the day
thank you so much for tuning in to this episode and i really hope you enjoyed seeing a little
bit more about the power brake setup and learning about what goes into making a set of power bricks
and yeah i must be honest so far it's pretty damn impressive and I can't wait to really
you know test them out over a longer period of time and compare them with rules so
I think with all of these performance videos you are definitely going to see
a review at a much later stage once we've got more experience with the setup the same can be said for
the suspension and the same can be said for the power upgrades coming up so stay tuned and all
will be revealed soon anyways guys thank you so much and I'll catch you next week cheers thank
you for tuning in to this episode of roam over landing i just wanted to take a moment to thank
my awesome patrons for their support as well as let you know if you want to join in on our weekly
live streams and updates you should head over to Patreon and become a member on the next episode
of roam over landing we head over to national lunar and finalize the dual battery setup and
I'd love to know which power brake kit you would like to put on your vehicle in the comments below
i also want to give a massive shout out to all my incredible product partners without
you guys none of this will be possible anyways I'll see you next week cheers