[boostm3]

I want to give mad props to Brian (Ruffan) re the write up, pics, and general help with brake pad installs. I had been planning to do mine from before I took delivery of my 135i on 11/02 even, and today I pulled the trigger. I hate brake dust... Really hate, I mean. Ive changed out the pads on every european car Ive owned. I had decided to replace my stock pads, which, btw, are stamped Jurid, which as we know, make really good dusty street pads, before I put any serious mileage on the car because I knew from prior experience that once the calipur and rotors get permeated by brake dust, pad changes become much more problematic with high potential for squeeling, juddery outcomes. Since I feel my track days are pretty well behind me, I wanted a performance street pad which had to stop well, and also had to have much less dust than stock.. I settled on the Centric Posi Quiet semi metallics.

I started the job on the passenger side front. Jacking the car was a snap with my new Harbor Freight 17" lift jack, my stands, and my new jack point insert tool and jack stand adaptors. I jacked up at the rear jack point and was able to do one whole side from that one jacking point, although I used a jack stand on the front jack point to lessen the stress on the jack while I was doing the front. So, I started in... After loosening the 3 torx screws I was planning on removing, I tackled the Allen bolts.. When Brian said he thought these might be reverse threaded, I know what he means.. They used some serious thread lock on those puppies. So much so that I wound up braking my 1/2" Crapsman ratchet, but not before I luckily was able to finish the job. I wound up torquing the allen bolts to about 75 ft lbs which Im hoping is ok.. Since there is no separate part number in the ETK for these allen bolts which are treated as part part of the caliper itself, its going to be hard to track down the 'official' torque spec.. But 75 lbs seems good.. I have a tendency to overtorque, with more than one snapped or stripped bolt as a result. This time, I decided to play it safe. Used a bit of blue locktite on them as well just for good measure.. I have no idea what kind of thread locker they came with, but it felt like it might have even been the permanent 'red' stuff, although the color was certainly not that. I had the worst time with the driver side front, the last pad I did...One of the two allen bolts was Really tough to remove.. My ratchet by this point was slipping gears badly. Every time I pulled up on it to try and loosen the bolt, it would skip with a large clunk, making me fear id not be able to complete the job without finding someone with a working ratchet. . But by holding the tighten/loosen lever in place, and trying to work as slowly and steadily as possible, i was just able to back that sucker out.. The other allen bolt on that caliper came out alot easier (less locking compound)

Long story medium, I finished the job in about 3.5 hrs, for all 4s. I wound up tranferring the backing plates from the stock rears to my Posi Quiets, which, btw, come with weights attached just like the stockers! I think I could probably take almost an hour off my completion time with a proper ratchet and the experience I gained doing it once.

I took her for a 25 mile drive afterward, and I was really happy... the Centrics stopped really well, and were much easier to modulate.. Cold stop seemed good as well. As for the dust, while not as clean as my M3's Metal Masters, theyre close, and way better than stock in this regard; not dustless, but low dust, and thats a huge improvement.

Thanks to Ruffan for his advice, and for this thread..