Garage Time

 My brake pad warning light lit up and although I knew the pads had a decent life left in them, I'd already bought the new ones a few months ago when I got the rears, so no reason not to do them. I thought it was also time I sorted out the mesh behind the front grilles, to stop the leaves getting in.

My jack is just too small (it was designed for my very low kit car) to lift the Boxster, so I had to borrow one from Cearth. Once the car was up on axle stands, I thought I'd just whip out the pads - all the YT videos showed it being very quick. But no, oh no...not for me.

The main pin holding the spring and pads in just would not shift, no matter how hard I whacked it - and on both sides!! Unbelievable...

After an hour or so of trying, I thought I'd make a start on taking the bumper off instead and that went much better:

Took the radiator shrouds off and found a fair amount of crap in there:

Cleaned all out and then used the mesh I still had from when I did the nose cone on my kit car, just cable tied inside the bumper:

I didn't make it quite the right size but not many people are going to look that closely and it will stop all the usual crud getting in there:

I left the brakes overnight and had another go - lots of WD40 and really hammering the shit out of the rods FINALLY got them out - Holy cow! I can only assume they haven't been done for years and there was a bit of rust I sandpapered off.

Once the pins were out, it took no time to put the pads in, using a new brake piston spreader tool I bought. However, I couldn't re-use the brake wear indicators as I'd bought non-OEM pads and the EBC yellows did not have the right size of hole to fit the wear sensors in.

I made sure to use copper slip on the pin to hopefully make this less of a nightmare if/when I have to do it again. I also cleaned the calipers off a little, so it looks a bit better and cable-tied the wear sensors out the way:

Went out for a short run and all feels OK, although there was a little squeal just as I got back and there is some dust on the wheels - hopefully, this will go away with a few more miles.