Hi everyone,
Did the upgrade on Sunday and wanted to update everyone. The job was pretty straightforward. If you've changed the brake pads on your Roadster you can do this job. It took about 2 hours. I already have Carbotech 1521 pads so I just swapped the rotors. If you're also doing the pads there is a link to a Lotus forum how-to in the Brake Pad thread.
The fronts are incredibly simple. The rears require a bit of fiddling. We'll start w/ the fronts. You can see higher resolution pictures by going here:
http://www.one-ring.net/jeep/albums/roadsterrotor/
After you remove the wheel you should see this:
Grab a 5mm Allen wrench and have a friend press and hold the brake pedal. Break that bolt shown in the picture loose. Don't remove it.
Now it's time to remove the caliper. You'll need an 8mm Allen. There are two bolts on the "top" of the caliper (the side facing the rear of the car). Here's the top one:
After you remove both the caliper will slide off the rotor. Set it on top of the suspension (see next pic). Remove that 5mm bolt and the rotor will come off. It should look like this:
Mount the new rotor (Dave labelled each rotor so make sure you install the correct hub in the correct location). Make sure the small hole in the rotor for the 5mm bolt lines up with the threaded hole on the hub. It should look like this:
Go ahead and install that 5mm bolt finger tight, install the caliper, and install the caliper bolts. Have your friend press and hold the brake pedal and snug up that 5mm bolt. One wheel done!
Now for the rears. After you pull the wheel it will look like this:
Begin the same way by breaking that 5mm bolt loose (if you use the e-brake for this make sure you release the brake after you break the bolt loose). Now it's time to move the caliper out of the way. There is a 17mm bolt on the top rear of the caliper. Shown here:
Remove that bolt. The next step is to remove the pin that is holding the brake pads. You'll need a small punch and tap out the pin from the inside towards you. See here:
Once you tap it out far enough you can grab the end of the pin and pull it out. Be careful as there's a spring coiled around the pin and pressing on the pads. Take note of how the spring goes around the pin for when you reassemble.
Now you'll want the rotate the caliper to the rear. The 17mm bolt that you removed slides through a collar that goes through the caliper. That collar floats in and out. You may need to push that collar toward the center of the car in order to rotate the caliper. Once you rotate the caliper (it won't go very far) you'll want to remove one brake pad. I used a hammer to tap it out.
Once you do that you can remove the 5mm bolt and the rotor. It will look like this:
Now install the rotor, finger tighten the 5mm bolt, reinstall the pad, spring, and pin, rotate the caliper back down and reinstall the 17mm bolt. Tighten the 5mm bolt (e-brake or a friend) and that's it.
The last step is break-in. You MUST break these rotors in or they will not work. Find a nice straight road with minimal traffic. For those of you on the Bay Area peninsula, I like Canada road near CA-92 and I-280. Do a series of near stops from 40mph. 5 or so is good. Then drive gently for a few minutes without using the brakes to let them cool. Then do 5 near-stops from 60mph. Drive gently for a few minutes and ideally park (no e-brake!) for 30 minutes or longer to let the brakes cool. Then repeat the above.