We also laid out the whole Baer kit. Here's what all you get in the PBR Track kit. The rotors are really hefty compared to the stock ones. You can see in the picture to the left that they literally dwarf the factory rotors. These 13" rotors require 17" wheels in order to clear the calipers once they are installed. You'll also notice that they are are slightly thinner overall, but it's because of the air gap in the middle is narrower.

 

The Calipers are also quite cool. They use two cylinders instead of just one for more stopping power. Not to mention that they look just plain mean. You'll be able to see the Baer logo through the wheel spokes once it's all put together. In the kit, the calipers come pre-assembled with the pads installed and all. The kit also comes with high-quality braided brake lines to replace your old rubber ones.

The first thing we did was to secure the car up on jack stands. It's easier to jack stand the whole front of the car up where you can take both tires off and get to both sides at the same time. The existing brake caliper is removed with two bolts that have a 3/8 hex head. You'll need a socket hex kit or the special GM 3/8 hex brake removal tool. Once you have those out, you should be able to wriggle the caliper around and dislodge it from the brake disc. At this point, we just wired the caliper out of the way -- we'll get to it here in a bit. We didn't disconnect it immediately since we didn't want to make a mess with brake fluid everywhere until we were ready for it. This is purely a personal preference.

Once you have the brake caliper removed, you'll be able to see the upper and lower "wings" that need to be cut from the spindle.

The first side we did was the passenger side which is what's pictured here. We cut the wings before we removed the wheel bearing assembly. When we did the drivers side, we removed the bearing assembly first, then did the cut. It was easier to get in there with the saw. A hack saw will work just fine but Clark had bought an electric saw, and that made surprisingly quick work of the cuts! 

As we were cutting, we squirted oil on the blade to keep the it lubricated while cutting. One blade pretty much did the whole thing but we switched to a new blade for the last cut on the other side. If you keep the blade oiled, you could most likely do all your cuts with one blade. It helps to have a second person keeping oil on it while you do your cut.

After we had finished the cutting, we used the grinder to clean up the sharp edges of the cut.

We then removed the four bolts holding the wheel bearing assembly. It was a little rusted in there so a few whacks with the hammer were necessary to free it. Like I stated above, when you do yours, you'll probably want to remove this before you cut, for easier access. 

 

Once you unhook the ABS electrical connector from the back, this comes out as one whole piece. You might note which direction the electrical connector plugged in so that when you re-assemble, it goes back in right-side up. I don't know if that really makes a difference or not, but you're usually better off putting it back together the way it came apart.

Once we had this all apart, we cleaned up all the parts where rust had formed with a wire brush. This will make it easier to re-assemble when the time comes.

Now that we have all the prep done, it's time to remove the old caliper while we can still get in there easily. You'll have to pull the clip out the bottom, which will release the line from the bracket. We cleaned ours up real good with the wire brush and blew the area clean with the air hose before we disconnected. You don't want any of that dirt to get into your lines. We didn't really have any trouble removing the clip -- using a small screwdriver to fit into the clip, we used a second much larger screwdriver to push against the smaller one jammed in the clip. A few hard whacks and it popped out.

The second shot shows what it looks like from the bottom of the bracket. This shot was actually taken after we had installed the new line, but it still shows you what it looks like underneath.

We started reassembly by mounting the Baer bracket in the back, and bolting the wheel bearing assembly back on with the hardware supplied in the kit. The bolts in the kit came with what looked like loctite or anti-sieze compound on the ends - since we weren't sure what it was, and the directions called for red loctite on bolts, we chose to add our own loctite to the ends.

In this shot to the left you can see what the bracket and assembly looks like from the back side of the wheel.

The next thing we did was to install the new braided brake lines. When you pull the old lines off, brake fluid will start to come out of the end of the steel line. Supplied with the kit are a couple of little black rubber tips. Those are to plug off the ends until you are ready. We installed the braided lines finger tight on the caliper first to prevent that end from leaking, then installed it into the bracket. After the line was connected to the bracket, we put on the brake disc, and put the caliper in it's mounting postion, held by one of the caliper bolts, finger tight. Then we tested the length of the brake line at full turn and found it to be too tight, so we removed the line from the back of the caliper, turned it around and re-attached it. That was much better and the line didn't bind this time when the steering wheel was turned fully in both directions. We installed the line on the back of the caliper to be straightup. That seemed the most logical way for it to sit.

Make sure that when the steering wheel is fully turned in both directions, that the line doesn't touch or come near anything else.

After getting it all installed and tightened down, we opened the bleeder screw located at the top of the caliper and waited until brake fluid started to come out. Then we proceeded to complete the other side. After it was done, we bled the whole brake system starting with the passenger rear, followed by driver's rear, then passenger front, then driver's front last. This is the order that bleeds the farthest distance from the brake fluid resevoir, to the closest.

Once we had done that, we wiped the rotors down to make sure they were clean. Ideally you would want brake parts cleaner to clean them, but we didn't have any handy so we used rubbing alcohol instead.

After you get it all done, you'll have to read the big long procedure on how to cure and bed the pads and rotor. It's a long procedure but after you're done, your car should be able to just about stop on a dime!

I highly recommend you read all your instructions through before starting. This is not meant to be a substitute for your instructions - this just provides some pictures and gives you and idea of what to expect along with pictures of what it'll look like through each stage.