Hey, guys! ChrisFix here.
Today, I'm gonna show you how to install dual brake calipers.
In this case, we're working on the DriftStang,
my 1998 Mustang GT that I use for drifting,
and we're going to be installing the dual calipers on the rear brakes.
Right now, we have the stock setup with the single caliper right here,
and what we're going to do is we're going to install another caliper
right on the other side,
so we can have dual rear calipers.
So we're going to go from this...
...to this.
Now you might want to run a dual caliper brake setup to give you more braking power.
But in this case, a dual caliper setup is going to allow me to use a hydraulic
E-brake for drifting.
When you pull on the hydro E-brake, it's going lock up the rear tires
which gives you another way to control the car while you're drifting.
Currently, the stock E-brake in the DriftStang is cable-operated,
and you really have to yank it hard and multiple times to get it to do anything.
And even then, it's not really a reliable way to get the rear brakes to lock up.
So running two brake calipers and a hydraulic E-brake is going to help me excel
in drifting.
Now let me show you how to install a dual brake caliper setup
using common hand tools.
And what makes this all possible is the dual caliper bracket.
Now, the stock caliper bracket has one spot to mount the caliper,
and the rest of the bracket is for mounting the dust shield.
This dual caliper bracket removes the dust shield
and allows two calipers to be mounted on one hub.
And to find adapter brackets for your car, just do a quick search online.
These are specific for a Ford rear end,
but brackets like this are made for many different makes and models.
In addition to the bracket, you're also going to need some brake calipers,
and I want to thank Advance Auto Parts for supporting the video
and sending me out these brand new brake calipers, brake rotors,
and brake pads.
All of which are going to help me lock up those rear wheels when I pull that E-brake.
And since we need to remove the rear axle shafts and open up the differential,
I'm going to be changing the differential fluid,
and I'm going to show you how to replace the rear wheel bearings
and bearing seals.
Again, all that's using common hand tools.
So, let's begin!
The first thing we want to do is we want to remove the brake caliper and brake rotor.
But before we do that, make sure you disengage the parking brake.
Otherwise, it's difficult to remove the brakes.
And with the parking brake disengaged, now we can remove the caliper.
And to do that, there are two bolts.
There's one under there, and then there's one right up here.
So we'll start with the top bolt.
And I'm using a long ratchet
to give me some extra leverage.
That's the first bolt, and the second one is right down here.
And this is the last bolt holding in the caliper, so make sure you hold the caliper
so it doesn't fall off.
And with the caliper free, don't let it just hang there by the brake line.
Get a rope or a bungee cord or something to tie the caliper to the suspension
so there's no pressure on the brake line.
And with the brake caliper off to the side, the next thing we can do is remove the rotor.
Now with the brakes removed and out of the way,
we can see our stock caliper bracket.
It's held in with 4 bolts, 2 on each side,
and when we remove those bolts, this caliper bracket is going to come sliding out.
The problem is it can't slide out past this axle, so we have to remove the axle.
This axle is basically this hub right here
and a long rod that goes to the differential.
So in order to remove this...
We need to open up the rear differential.
So at our differential, we have the cover that's held on by 10 bolts.
And we want to remove the bolts starting from the bottom.
But before we do that, get a drain pan under the diff just in case it starts to leak.
You also want to go check the back of the differential and find the fill bolt,
which is located right there.
And to loosen this up, use a box end of a wrench.
In this case, I have an extension.
And you want to be sure that the fill bolt will come out before you drain the differential,
because if this bolt is stuck for some reason and you drain the differential,
you won't be able to fill it up.
Alright, now we can start removing the bottom bolts.
And then, work our way up.
And just a fair warning, you're about to smell the worst smelling thing in your car.
Diff fluid has a lot of sulfur in it, which is an anti-wear additive.
And this stuff stinks!
So we're at the last bolt at the top, and you want to unscrew it about halfway.
That way, our cover can't fall off.
Now, carefully pry the bottom of the cover.
Be sure not to gouge the metal of the differential with the screwdriver.
And that fluid doesn't look too bad.
Especially compared to my truck, that fluid came out looking like mud.
But on the DriftStang, it still looks like oil.
And once the fluid's done draining, we can finish removing that final bolt at the top
and remove the cover.
And now, we have access to our differential.
And while we're in here, it's a good idea to check the teeth on the ring gear.
With the car in neutral, you can grab one of the axles and spin it.
And after inspecting all the teeth on the ring gear, it looks good.
I don't see any chips or indication of excessive wear.
So now, let's find the differential shaft lock bolt
which is right there.
And what this bolt does is it holds in this pin here,
and we need to remove this pin to remove the axles.
Now make sure the car's in gear or park so the gears won't spin,
and use a wrench...
to remove this 8-millimeter bolt.
Good.
Now, we can sneak our hand behind the gear and push the pin out
just enough so we can grab onto it and remove it.
With the car back in neutral,
turn the axles so that you can see the spring and the spider gears.
Taking a closer look, you can see the end of the left axle
and the end of the right axle.
Next, we want to push the axle inwards,
and that gives us access to our C-clips right there.
Then we can use one of these stick magnets to get it in there
and remove that C-clip.
Perfect!
Since we're doing both axles,
you might as well get that other C-clip while you're in there.
Good, with the C-clip removed, we can carefully pull the axle all the way out.
And just to show you, the C-clip fits into a channel in the axle.
And that's what prevents the axle from coming out when you're driving.
Alright, with the axle out of the way, we have access to our stock backing plate.
Now that's held in by 4 bolts here, but to get access to the bolts, we have to
remove the anti-mone bracket.
The bracket's held in by 2 nuts, which clamps it onto the axle and reduces brake
noise due to vibration.
Once the two nuts are removed, the bracket separates.
Now we have access to our 4 bracket bolts.
So get a wrench on the bolt head in the back and a ratchet on the nut,
and start wrenching away!
And with all four of those bolts unscrewed,
we can remove the stock bracket.
Since you have the axle apart, it's smart to change the rear wheel bearing and the
bearing seal.
And while removing the bearing is very simple once everything's apart, it does
require a set of specialty tools.
We have a slide hammer, which is gonna help take the bearing out and take that
seal out.
And then we have a driver set which is gonna help push the new bearing and the
new seal in.
Now one thing I wanna mention about these tools, you can actually rent them for
free at your local parts store, which is nice if you don't need them often.
So first, we're gonna use the slide hammer and hook attachment.
And get a bucket just in case some diff fluid leaks out.
Then, place the hook on the seal,
and give the slide hammer a few pulls at the bottom,
then at the top.
And good!
The seal is out, so let's remove the bearing.
Next, we're gonna be using this bearing adapter, which slips into the bearing.
Then you open it up behind it and you tighten it down.
And you really have to hit this slide hammer hard to get the bearing out.
And there we go, the bearing is removed.
It's that simple, it's amazing how the right tools make jobs like this so much easier.
Now we can install our new bearing which is gonna fit right in here.
And then we have a driver kit.
And we need to find the right adapter to fit onto our bearing.
This smaller adapter is too small.
It actually pushes against the bearing surface here, which is just gonna break
the bearing.
We want to push against the outside of the bearing, not the inside of the bearing.
This inside is delicate, but this outside is meant to get hit.
And this driver fits perfect.
If you don't have a bearing driving kit, some people like to use large sockets.
This is a 36-millimeter, this would work if you wanted.
But we have the correct tool and it fits, so let's use it.
And before we go driving this bearing in, you never want to drive a bearing in dry.
Always use lubricant.
So I'm using some of the gear oil.
And it's also a good idea to put gear oil on the actual bearing so it doesn't run dry
when you first start driving.
With the bearing lubricated, now we can drive it in.
You want to make sure that you're driving the bearing in straight.
And don't be afraid to hit it!
And then once that bearing bottoms out and you can't hit it in any further, you're done.
There's also a little line in there that you can see.
And we're pushed right past that line, so we know we're done.
And then now we can add our bearing seal.
And you want to hit that in so it's just flush with the axle.
Just like that.
Alright, so with our bearing and bearing seal replaced,
now let's install our dual caliper bracket!
Actually, before we do that, let's clean up the suspension a little bit.
That's better.
And with everything all cleaned up, now we can install our dual caliper bracket.
Now we want to push all four of the bolts through the bracket like so.
And I'm going to add a little bit of medium- strength thread locker to the bolts
because there's a lot of vibration and we don't want these things coming off.
Then let's tighten the nuts down on each bolt.
And in a crisscross pattern, torque down each one to 50 ft-lbs.
And check it out, that looks awesome, I can't wait to get the two calipers on there.
Next, we have to install the axle.
Installing the axle is simple.
It just slides right in, but you want to make sure that you don't damage your new
bearing or new seal.
And with the axle in, now we can go install our C-clip at the differential.
Use your magnet and align that C-clip into the channel in the axle,
and use a screwdriver to push it in the rest of the way.
Then pull the axle out to lock it in place.
And one thing I want to mention, you're doing the same exact thing on the other side.
I'm just not showing it because, well, it's the same exact thing.
So let's get the C-clip from the driver side axle as well.
Good, so now we can spin the axle and put our differential pin in.
The pin has a hole on one side and that's where our bolt's going to go through.
So make sure the hole is going to line up with the bolt.
Now it's a good idea to get a brand new differential shaft lock bolt.
They're inexpensive and it has the Loctite on it already so it won't come loose
because that's definitely something you don't want coming loose.
So tighten this up, and if you are reusing the old one, make sure you add Loctite to
these threads.
And the differential shaft lock bolt has to get tightened down to around 26 ft-lbs.
Now we need to install our differential cover, but before we can do that,
we need to clean off the gasket that's stuck on the cover.
And the best way to do that is with a plastic scraper.
You don't want to use a screwdriver or anything metal, because metal could
scratch the surface.
But if we use plastic, it's not going to scratch it.
And another thing that you can use is one of these abrasive Scotch brite pads.
And take your time removing the old gasket and getting this surface squeaky
clean.
So with the differential cover completely clean and the surface nice and smooth,
now we need to clean the surface of our differential.
But before you start cleaning, make sure you cover the inside of the differential
with a towel or a plastic bag or something so that as you're cleaning, the dirt and
debris doesn't get into the differential.
So with the mating surface clean on the differential and our cover, now we want to
install the cover and seal it up.
And there's two ways to form a gasket.
One, we can use a paper gasket, or we can use an RTV gasket maker.
If you're going to use RTV, make sure you get the black stuff, which is good for
differential fluid.
We're going to use a paper gasket because it's easier and a lot quicker.
But both methods will work.
The trick with the paper gasket is you want to use a gasket sealer.
What you do is you just spread a light coat of the sealer around the differential
mating surface,
and then you place the gasket onto the surface.
And that gasket sealing compound is gonna hold the gasket in place so you can
get your cover on there.
And then get a couple of bolts hand- tightened to hold everything in place.
Now we want to hand-tighten all 10 of those bolts down.
And by the way, if you are using RTV, I'll link a video that I did in the description on
how to properly use RTV to seal the differential.
Now we're on one of the most important steps to prevent leaks, and that's torquing
down the bolts on the differential cover in the right way.
First, we need to see if this differential cover is aluminum or steel.
And this is not magnetic, so this cover is aluminum.
And the reason why we want to see is because aluminum gets torqued down to
24 ft-lbs,
and steel gets torqued down to 33 ft-lbs.
So now we can start torquing down the bolts.
I'm going to start with the bottom center one.
And just like you torque down wheels, you want to go in a crisscross pattern.
You don't want to tighten down any of the bolts next to each other.
So after you get one bolt tightened down,
move to the other side and tighten down another.
Another thing I like to do is mark each of the bolts that I torque down.
That way, I don't forget to torque any bolts down.
Good.
And with all the bolts torqued down, our differential is sealed, and now we can add
our fluid.
Be sure to check your owner's manual to make sure that you're using the correct
type of fluid.
You also want to make sure that, if you have a limited-slip differential,
you're using the correct amount of friction modifier.
And because there isn't a lot of room to fill the differential, I'm using this tube.
And I'll show you how to set it up right now.
You're gonna want to snake your tube into the fill hole.
Just like that.
Now run the tube above the differential and connect it to a funnel.
Then all you need to do is pour the diff fluid into the funnel and let gravity do the
work.
The fluid's gonna run from the funnel all the way to the diff without a pump.
Just keep filling your funnel and watch the fill hole.
And you want to be sure that your car is at least somewhat level when you do this.
And when you see fluid starting to leak out of the fill hole, the differential's full.
Now try not to make a mess and remove the tube.
I'm using the cap from the diff fluid bottle to clog the end of the tube and stop the
flow from the funnel.
And then we need to get the fill plug in there and tighten it up so it's snug.
Be sure not to overtighten this.
So to completely fill our differential, I needed two of these and a little bit extra
from a third one.
Now we have one last thing that need to do, and that is installing our brakes.
We'll start with the brake rotor.
And now we can install our brake caliper.
But I think this would look really good if it was painted the same color of the car.
That's better.
So let's get it installed.
I like to use a little bit of medium strength thread locker on the caliper mounting
bolts to prevent vibrations from loosening them up.
And then we can mount the caliper to our dual caliper bracket.
Hand tighten the top bolt and then hand tighten the lower bolt.
And then tighten these two bolts to 76 ft- lbs of torque.
And since we're doing dual calipers, when you mount the caliper, you want to make
sure that the bleeder valve is at the top and not at the bottom of the caliper.
Because to bleed the air out of the caliper, the air bubbles need to float up to the top.
Next, open the caliper up.
Add the inside brake pad,
and then the outside brake pad,
close it up,
and tighten the slide pin bolt to around 25 ft-lbs.
Good, our caliper is fully installed.
So let's go and install the other caliper.
And remember, we have that anti-mone bracket that we need to install first.
So slide the U-bolt around the axle and attach it to the bracket.
Then tighten the two nuts to clamp the bracket to the axle.
Now with the anti-mone bracket bolted in, we could install this old brake caliper.
But I'd rather install this nice, new, freshly painted caliper.
So we're going to do the same exact thing as the other caliper.
So screw in the top bolt,
and then the bottom bolt,
add the outside brake pad,
and then the inside brake pad,
then close the caliper over the brake pads,
and we're so close to being done!
And we can't forget to torque down the caliper mounting bolts to 76 ft-lbs.
And with that, we are done!
Check that out, that is how you install dual brake calipers.
The rear brakes are the stock setup.
They go to the stock brake line so the E- brake will still work, your normal brakes
will still work.
Now, this front brake right now isn't connected to anything.
What I'm gonna show you in another video is how to install the hydraulic E-
brake, and run all the brake lines so we have a functioning dual caliper setup.
And if you're watching this and you didn't want to do a hydro E-brake, instead you
wanted to have both of these calipers connected to the stock brake system, you
can get yourself a T-adapter like this, and then you can T off the stock brake line.
So right where the stock brake line attaches, you attach this T,
and then you have your stock brake line going to that back caliper.
And then you can have another brake line going to this front caliper.
So then you can use your stock brakes with dual calipers.
But again in this case, I am installing a hydro E-brake.
Stay tuned for that video coming up.
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