James' B7 RS4 saloon

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James1984
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James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by James1984 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:24 am

Now that my brake disc swap has escalated into a mini build it's about time I share my pictures with the world so I will start from the beginning.
I've quite a bit to write up so I will do it in instalments over the next few days

Bought my 07 RS4 in the April of 2016 with 65k on it and for the first 18 months of my ownership it is/was as it left the factory with the exception of a non resonated, valved Milltek exhaust.

I purchased it off a friend who had it for seven years prior so I have known the car since it was three years old and it looked like this on the day I picked her up.
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The pink badges aren't my thing but luckily it was just vinyl on top of the red that I could easily remove.

I didn't take many pictures of the car over the next year and a half and here they are 😂
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Knowing that my rear brakes had just about had it I set about looking for replacements, I had seen that JHM made replacement rotors for the front and matching two piece discs for the rear but thought the cost of replacing the rotors when needed would be costly due to the $100 postage, import duty and vat etc.
That's where I stumbled across a listing on eBay from reyland advertising their front rotors at a great price and I called them to see it they would make some rears which they agreed they would if they had the dimensions of a standard disc.
After finding what I could off the Internet and measuring my own discs I had something I could work with and modelled myself a set when at work.
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And after all that reyland bought a set of discs and measured them themselves 😂
And here they are after a couple of weeks.
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Fast forward to September the 20th 2018, three weeks before my wife was due to give birth to our second child and as I was to be off work for a month planned on having lots of garage time (how naive was I?)

I finally managed to clear the garage out to get the car in and got it jacked up on axle stands with the help of a friend ready to change the brakes.
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And that's where I will leave it for now, still getting used to uploading pics so it's taken me an hour to get this far 😂
2007 B7 RS4 Saloon, Phantom Black, Forge Oil Cooler Kit, custom home made air feed, H&R Coilovers, H&R anti roll bars, 10mm H&R Spacers, Milltek decat downpipes, Milltek Non Res Valved Exhaust, Reyland Motorsports front & rear discs with Hel braided Hoses, full underbody overhauled inc powdercoated subframes and arms, 034 solid subframe bushes and every joint, arm or bush replaced.

Fatneck73
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by Fatneck73 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 7:47 am

Nice write up. Looking forward to next installment.

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Covkiller
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by Covkiller » Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:02 am

+1 Oo and paint that floor.
Subscribed :thumbs:
Last edited by Covkiller on Sat Feb 02, 2019 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
RS4 B7, Mugello Blue, K&W V3 & HR ARBs, set up by Centre Gravity, Milltek Valved Non Res & cat bypass pipes, BMC air filter, braided hoses, DOT 5.1, Terraclean, MRC Full Carbon Clean, MRC remap 448PS 477NM, 20" S7 alloys with 4mm spacers & Hawke spigots 66.6 > 57.1, AP Racing front discs. Sold Sept 2019. Now rocking an F80 M3

James1984
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by James1984 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:50 am

Covkiller wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:02 am
+1 oo and paint that floor.
Subscribed :thumbs:
Ive been planning on it since I bought the house seven years ago 😆 i will have to get it done after the car is out, i get that much concrete dust im surprised i still have a floor
2007 B7 RS4 Saloon, Phantom Black, Forge Oil Cooler Kit, custom home made air feed, H&R Coilovers, H&R anti roll bars, 10mm H&R Spacers, Milltek decat downpipes, Milltek Non Res Valved Exhaust, Reyland Motorsports front & rear discs with Hel braided Hoses, full underbody overhauled inc powdercoated subframes and arms, 034 solid subframe bushes and every joint, arm or bush replaced.

James1984
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by James1984 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:15 am

As I knew I was going to refurb the calipers I started to remove them which took no time at all, until I came to remove the rear caliper carriers, f**k me they are tight! Not something I want to do again as they were so tight I broke a ratchet.
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I stripped the front discs down to clean all of the bobbins, nuts and bolts and threw them into a bucket of bilt hamber detox c overnight to shift any of the rust and I must say it's quite impressive stuff, has saved me quite a bit of time so far and I also did the brackets and pad pins/springs.
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I also broke one of these pad slider plates.
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No big deal, they can't be more than £10/20 yeah? Well I now know that £95 is the price I had to pay for one, that was not a good day!!

So next was to paint the front disc bells, I didn't paint any surfaces that the wheel or hub mounted to as no not cause any problems.
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And then built them back up.
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2007 B7 RS4 Saloon, Phantom Black, Forge Oil Cooler Kit, custom home made air feed, H&R Coilovers, H&R anti roll bars, 10mm H&R Spacers, Milltek decat downpipes, Milltek Non Res Valved Exhaust, Reyland Motorsports front & rear discs with Hel braided Hoses, full underbody overhauled inc powdercoated subframes and arms, 034 solid subframe bushes and every joint, arm or bush replaced.

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dhali
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by dhali » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:38 am

Nice work . Keep those updates coming . And those rear calipers are in similar condition to mine :-(

James1984
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by James1984 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:44 am

dhali wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:38 am
Nice work . Keep those updates coming . And those rear calipers are in similar condition to mine :-(
They didny look too bad until i had a poke at them and the powdercoat fell off in big chunks.
2007 B7 RS4 Saloon, Phantom Black, Forge Oil Cooler Kit, custom home made air feed, H&R Coilovers, H&R anti roll bars, 10mm H&R Spacers, Milltek decat downpipes, Milltek Non Res Valved Exhaust, Reyland Motorsports front & rear discs with Hel braided Hoses, full underbody overhauled inc powdercoated subframes and arms, 034 solid subframe bushes and every joint, arm or bush replaced.

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dhali
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by dhali » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:49 am

James1984 wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:44 am
dhali wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:38 am
Nice work . Keep those updates coming . And those rear calipers are in similar condition to mine :-(
They didny look too bad until i had a poke at them and the powdercoat fell off in big chunks.
Same as mine when I was fitting the'RS4' plates .Big clumps started peeling off .

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FrazerD
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by FrazerD » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:11 am

Good thread so far, looking forward to the next update.

Cheers :thumbs:

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alex760
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by alex760 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:25 am

I'm enjoying this, looking forward to some more :thumbs:

James1984
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by James1984 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 7:47 pm

While removing the rear carriers I noticed a few bushes had begun to crack, so with the car being eleven years old I decided that in the long run it was going to be easier to drop the back subframe and have all the steel parts powder coated and new bushes all round, although more costly and time consuming it should be cheaper than replacing bits here and there especially when it comes to single use bolts and alignment, the subframe will be mounted with 034 Motorsport solid bushings.
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Also for the price of 1.5 hours labour (£70) I bought a bush removal kit, if it gets some of the bushes out then I'm laughing, I think inserting the bushes is where it may triumph though as they could be rusted in.
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Unfortunately while I was removing parts on the rear end I found a broken rear spring and after much deliberation I decided it would be best to replace the DRC entirely, I decided on bilstein b14 coilovers due to having them on a previous but after placing my order I was told that they were out of stock until January and I initially predicted to have it back on the road by now (this was early October) so a deal was struck and I am now the owner of a set of H&R coilovers.
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And that's all I have to say about that, well the rear anyway :bash:
2007 B7 RS4 Saloon, Phantom Black, Forge Oil Cooler Kit, custom home made air feed, H&R Coilovers, H&R anti roll bars, 10mm H&R Spacers, Milltek decat downpipes, Milltek Non Res Valved Exhaust, Reyland Motorsports front & rear discs with Hel braided Hoses, full underbody overhauled inc powdercoated subframes and arms, 034 solid subframe bushes and every joint, arm or bush replaced.

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Covkiller
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by Covkiller » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:36 pm

Bloody hell fire, you ain't messing about. Go for it :thumbs:
RS4 B7, Mugello Blue, K&W V3 & HR ARBs, set up by Centre Gravity, Milltek Valved Non Res & cat bypass pipes, BMC air filter, braided hoses, DOT 5.1, Terraclean, MRC Full Carbon Clean, MRC remap 448PS 477NM, 20" S7 alloys with 4mm spacers & Hawke spigots 66.6 > 57.1, AP Racing front discs. Sold Sept 2019. Now rocking an F80 M3

James1984
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by James1984 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:47 pm

Covkiller wrote:
Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:36 pm
Bloody hell fire, you ain't messing about. Go for it :thumbs:
You haven't seen the front yet 😂
2007 B7 RS4 Saloon, Phantom Black, Forge Oil Cooler Kit, custom home made air feed, H&R Coilovers, H&R anti roll bars, 10mm H&R Spacers, Milltek decat downpipes, Milltek Non Res Valved Exhaust, Reyland Motorsports front & rear discs with Hel braided Hoses, full underbody overhauled inc powdercoated subframes and arms, 034 solid subframe bushes and every joint, arm or bush replaced.

James1984
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by James1984 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 10:48 pm

Now the front, the upper arms (all four) came up as an advisory in my last mot so I bought a full meyle HD control arm kit which also came with anti roll bar links and track rod ends and of course new bolts, like at the rear the subframe will be removed, powder coated and fitted with solid bushings, the front shocks will also receive 034 Motorsport density line top mount bushings.
While removing the front upper control arms I was fortunate enough to remove the dreaded pinch bolts on both sides within 3/4 of an hour so as you can imagine I had a pretty smug look on my face!
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Which soon turned as I snapped both front uprights! Used items on eBay all had the control arms still attached (I can guess why) and reproduction parts at £175-£200 looked cheap, there was only one way, genuine parts 😭
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Moving on, I removed the front bumper to get to the headlights and sort a CAF out, the first thing I noticed was that the oil cooler was goosed, I tried to have it repaired and make my own lines but gave up and ordered a forge kit, it wasn't quite straight forward as the brackets didn't match the spacings of my original cooler by about 10mm or so but got there in the end.
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The power steering cooler mounts had corroded out also, they are only a press fit aluminium bush so as soon as I tried to unscrew the bobbins they snapped out, these were repaired by carefully removing some fins and inserting a M6 c-clip and using a rubber bobbin 5mm longer, a nice cheap fix for once.
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2007 B7 RS4 Saloon, Phantom Black, Forge Oil Cooler Kit, custom home made air feed, H&R Coilovers, H&R anti roll bars, 10mm H&R Spacers, Milltek decat downpipes, Milltek Non Res Valved Exhaust, Reyland Motorsports front & rear discs with Hel braided Hoses, full underbody overhauled inc powdercoated subframes and arms, 034 solid subframe bushes and every joint, arm or bush replaced.

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FrazerD
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Re: James' B7 RS4 saloon

Post by FrazerD » Tue Jan 08, 2019 11:10 pm

Christ, you weren’t holding back, I suppose needs must. I’ve got to remember that this didn’t all happen at once too.

Cheers :thumbs:

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