Since I got my 128i I always hated the brakes on it. They clicked from front to back movement, they shook bad under heavy braking, and pedal feel was atrocious; as I would expect from teeny tiny single piston sliding calipers on a 3,000lb car.
After deciding on three different brake kits jumping back and forth, I finally found the yellow retrofit kit that BMW offers as a retrofit kit. Although there are no other DIY's on this for a 1 series, and only the e90 chassis I figured even if I get the whole kit for $1700 I will get my moneys worth out of the fronts and sell the rears. BUT that wasn't the case!
Sure enough I ordered the kit and the following weekend I decided to just try the rears and see if the rotors even worked with the hand brake and mounted up properly.. the rest is history..
THE DIY:
To begin you will want to gather a few things:
M12 x 1.5 to M10 to 1.5 time serts (X4)
M10 washers (X4)
New E82 brake wear sensors
Brake fluid (DOT4)
Loctite
So this is a very straight forward DIY, I will hit the key points below and the rest is very very easy..
FRONT:
For the fronts the only part I had to modify were the F30 front dust shields, some slight hammering and adding one extra hole did the trick, same as the e90 DIY.
REAR:
As for the rears they do line up, however not without some addition of extra parts.
STEP 1: Install M12 x 1.5 time sert into threaded caliper mounting holes using red Loctite (I used blue because I'm lazy) and the proper insertion tools with time sert kit.
STEP 2: whether you want to run a dust shield or not you must remove the original 128i dust shield (this might be different for the 135i I recommend checking part numbers). I chose to run without a rear dust shield.
STEP 3: Now that your dust shield is off and you calipers have a M10 x 1.5 threaded mounting hole, you can mount them. you will need two M10 washers per side. Not sure of the thickness of mine, but the gap is very small and I'm sure whatever you find at the hardware store will be plenty thick to make up the space.
You will want to put one washer between each mounting hole on spindle and caliper.
NOW GO STOP!!!!
Here is my finished product!
After deciding on three different brake kits jumping back and forth, I finally found the yellow retrofit kit that BMW offers as a retrofit kit. Although there are no other DIY's on this for a 1 series, and only the e90 chassis I figured even if I get the whole kit for $1700 I will get my moneys worth out of the fronts and sell the rears. BUT that wasn't the case!
Sure enough I ordered the kit and the following weekend I decided to just try the rears and see if the rotors even worked with the hand brake and mounted up properly.. the rest is history..
THE DIY:
To begin you will want to gather a few things:
M12 x 1.5 to M10 to 1.5 time serts (X4)
M10 washers (X4)
New E82 brake wear sensors
Brake fluid (DOT4)
Loctite
So this is a very straight forward DIY, I will hit the key points below and the rest is very very easy..
FRONT:
For the fronts the only part I had to modify were the F30 front dust shields, some slight hammering and adding one extra hole did the trick, same as the e90 DIY.
REAR:
As for the rears they do line up, however not without some addition of extra parts.
STEP 1: Install M12 x 1.5 time sert into threaded caliper mounting holes using red Loctite (I used blue because I'm lazy) and the proper insertion tools with time sert kit.
STEP 2: whether you want to run a dust shield or not you must remove the original 128i dust shield (this might be different for the 135i I recommend checking part numbers). I chose to run without a rear dust shield.
STEP 3: Now that your dust shield is off and you calipers have a M10 x 1.5 threaded mounting hole, you can mount them. you will need two M10 washers per side. Not sure of the thickness of mine, but the gap is very small and I'm sure whatever you find at the hardware store will be plenty thick to make up the space.
You will want to put one washer between each mounting hole on spindle and caliper.
NOW GO STOP!!!!
Here is my finished product!
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