Range Rover Sport HSE
Brake Installation

one year later...

  

We took the discs out of their boxes to clean them and to

Rotors were power-coded all over including the vanes between the friction faces and they match the paint pretty close to. You don't have to paint rotor, I just wanted to cut down on the rust brake discs develop over time and I have say the paint is holding up well too. Power-Coat is good stuff...

ART's Land Rover Range Rover Sport HSE brake kits. Here the rear rotor disc rest on a front disc. Good news for you LR3 owners the Sport is based on the LR3 chassis which makes these kits fit the LR3 models too.

Safety First.

Just before my friend and I were planning to jack the vehicle and placing it on a pair of shop work stands, we broke the lug bolts lose while the truck was still just touching the floor. Not much just enough to make it easer when removing the wheels after the truck is up on the stands.

Looking a the machine work, my friend said the work looked first class.

Have you every had brake squeak before ? Well, now's a good time to get after it.

Before we started removing the wheels and rotors, we applied a "Anti-Squeak" compound to the back of each of the pads supplied with the kits. These products come in a aerosol can ready to apply, you can find these products ar your local automotive store.

This step is worth taking and spending the time to do it correctly. Brake squeak can be annoying and its really irritating if you have to take the system apart should your truck develop squeaking pads. Like my grandfather once told me "...There's never enough time to do things right the first time but, there's always enough time to do things again..."
I applied a small amount of Anti-Squeak to the back of each pad.

Be sure to follow the manufactures instructions to give the product enough time to dry before attempting to install them into the calipers.

Once the wheels have been removed it's time to remove the caliper assembly. But fist, you'll need to remove the bolt shown below before using a barker-bar fitted with the proper socket to loosen and remove the two bolts securing the caliper to the trucks' suspension,

I placed one of the boxes the brake kit came in so we could support the caliper so as to not damage the brake line.

There is a bolt used to secure the brake line near the caliper when mounted on the suspension, You'll need to remove it first before removing the larger bolts used to secure the caliper.

Next, we removed the stock rotor disc. There is one fastener used to hold the disc fast to the spindle face that must be removed using a torx bit, After which, the stock disc can be removed.

Now, is a good time to clean all of the surfaces while the anti-squeak compound is drying (especially where the pistons contact the back of the pads).  Also, clean the spindle-mating surface where the rotor disc contacts the spindle. 

Next, we removed the sensor pad wear wire and then we used a small C-clamp to squeeze the caliper piston back in order to make room to installation the new pads.

Go easy here be careful this is not a race as this process pushes the brake fluid back to the master cylinder.

Do this to both the left and right hand sides of the vehicle before moving forward..

Frankly, we were surprised at the amount of wear the stock pads showed when compared to the new pads. They were 3/16" (4.7mm) thinner then the replacement pads with only 3k on my vehicle's stock brakes,

Note the difference in thickness between the old pad with only 3k on it and the replacement pad supplied with the kit. No wonder these pads create so much dust...

After seeing the wear on the stock pads and out of curiosity we turned our attentions to the stock brake discs. We measured .009" (.28mm). Now weather or not this translates into having to replace the stock brake every 10k to 12k as the dealer informed me, we don't know. But, my service technician told me the ART discs on my HSE still look new. What he doesn't know is the brake discs have over 18k on them now and I haven't touched them.

Of course this doesn't have anything to do with performing a brake jobs but, it does demonstrate the frustration many owners of these heavy SUVs are having.

Using a heightgage equipped with a dial indicator, we measured the step between where the pads touchs the disc face and not. We noted a .009" (.28mm).

Next, we installed the new ART discs, replaced the small screw, and then re-install the calipers.

ART disc installed. We added a little thread loc to the one fastener used with the disc and re-tighten it.

We used a torque wrench set to 65lbs (289 newton's) to tighten the bolts securing the calipers back onto the suspension.

Here's what the completed job looks like.

We repeated this process for the three remaining conners.

The ART rotors have a left hand and right hand slot pattern to them. Here we have the right hand side installed and finished ready to reinstall the wheel.

The finished project.

The new ART rotors look great behind the wheels. I get a lot of comments about how they look and where I got them.

The last step remaining to compete is to bed the new pads. This process is needed to mature the new pads. ART included these instructions. In fact, then came with the e-mail informing me the kits had been shipped which included both the tracking numbers and the instructions. After reading about process it had me asking more questions about why it was necessary in the first place. In the past, I just drove the vehicle normally and didn't go thur a bedding process. But, I found a link on STOPTECH talking about this and it makes sense to me now. If you want to know more info, read the "Pad and Rotor Bed-In Theory" written by Matt Weiss and James Walker. Good info!