revse28

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, the thing about owning old BMWs is they always need some kind of work, but the great thing about old BMWs is a normal person with a little bit of mechanical know how can work on them.  My latest “work” was to upgrade braking ability.  Speed is fun but stopping is equally important.  I found some cross drilled rotors with close out prices and brake pads also at a great price, so the logical thing to do was to paint the calipers as well for a complete awesome upgrade for Elka (my white ’87 e28).  I have had these parts for several months and when she needed repair for a battery drain somewhere in the electrical system, it was time to put her up on jack stands and spend some quality time!

First step was to paint rotors with POR-15 rust treatment.  Here are the before and after shots.

Cleaned all the calipers with degreaser supplied in the paint kit and a little wire brush help.  The epoxy paint was easy to work with and just enough to cover the calipers.

Next day installed new pads, assembled brakes to get a cool new look and much better performance!

Final look:

The battery drain was probably a ground issue, but we (JB and I) I did so many things to the system with relays, fuses, cleaning grounds, new battery and new alternator, that I could not tell for sure the particular problem.  Could also have been a combination of things.  In the end, no more battery drain!  I also added a front strut brace which took some extra fabrication to make it fit, but that is what you get buying a strut brace on ebay from Hong Kong!

Next thought:  ECU performance chip, maybe for Christmas!  🙂

This entry was posted on October 22, 2011 at 9:42 am and is filed under BMW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.