BMW E36 PFC Rotor Replacement

Thanksgiving weekend task: replacing the Rotors and pads on a BMW E36 M3 Performance Friction Brake setup with floating rotors.

First about the Car, it is a BMW E36 M3 track car, gutting done by me and large part of cutting/gutting and rollcaged by Carlos Cardounel of AutoDynamics (http://www.goroadracing.com/), Sparco seat for the track. The car has great ohlins suspension, an euro-engine car, PFC brakes and SSR wheels. By the way thanks to finishline productions (http://www.finishlineprod.net/) who took the car photo at the last nasa racing event at Summit point 2010.

James from RRT Performance http://www.rrtracing.com/ does most of the tuning, engine maintenance on this car.  It ran great after the valve adjustment and shim replacement.  They even built a custom splitter for this car and in the near future a wing is in the works by RRT.  They are a good group of guys who have been racers themselves, so if you are looking for a BMW tuning/performance shop in Sterling VA then this is the place to go.

So this was my first attempt to replace the rotors on this car.  So proceeded to remove the caliper from this PFC setup and the simplest things seem hard when you are dealing with a new brand or new type of caliper setup.  Below are some things to look for and hopefully this will make it easier on the next person.
1) first unbolt the two bolts using a 15 mm socket one on the top and one on the bottom as shown in the picture below:

2) Next you have to remove the two thick washers as shown in the pics below else the Caliper won't come out, at first for me they did not look like washers and they looked like part of the stud that the caliper slides on. But they are washers that are stuck there because the center of the washers have a grove that seems to hold the washer in place and won't move past the threads (See pics below of washers).   To remove please pull or unscrew by hand this thick aluminum washer to free the caliper.  This took an hour to figure out plus I called my friend Eric Wong (http://www.brakeswap.com/) for his opinion since I did not want to get frustrated and destroy any small parts.  This setup is expensive.  By the way credit goes to Eric for teaching me about replacing brake pads and calipers.

So this first pic below shows the top and bottom bolts that need to be removed as the caliper is affixed to a bracket which holds the calipers.

Next is the thick aluminum washer that needs to be pulled out after the main bolt is undone with a 15 mm socket.

The washer that gave me so much trouble.

3)  Now the Caliper slides out easily after the top and bottom thick washers are out.
4) Now you are ready to take the Rotor off using the normal procedure by using the 6 mm hex socket as seen below.

5) Now you are ready to remove the hat of the rotor to use on the new rotor.  To remove the hat which is the center piece of the disc and is affixed to the disc via a ring in the back and bolts.  This is a relatively easy task.  You will need a 4 mm hex socket for the inside and a 1/4 mm regular socket for the front.  Please see illustration below.

6) The new PFC rotors, ring and new hardware.  Nice ayyyy!!!!

7) Now the easy part of removing the hat from the rotor,  this should be easy but it won't just tap out because debris get stuck between the rotor hat and the rotor slots.  This causes the hat to get wedged in tight.  SOLUTION: No man should be without 2x4's and a hammer.  Place the rotor between the two 2x4's and hammer a few taps and the hat comes off.

Lastly finished the install, Torque setting for the hat bolts listed at the PFC documentation is 10-12 lbs.  I torqued them to 11 lbs.  I spent about 15 minutes cleaning and sanding with high grit paper. Mounting the hat and torquing takes about 30 minutes.