The car had its MOT back in November, and failed on a couple of things.


- Headlight alignment - no surprise since I'd removed the headlights to restore the lenses. I thought I'd set it level, but it was too high on N/S. No big deal though, it's a quick fix.

- N/S/F wheel bearing - in hindsight I should have replaced the bearings in the ST170 knuckles whilst they were off the car, before I fitted them, but I got 2 years out of the nearside one and offside is still going, so not too bad. Got a friend who owns a garage near me to do it for me. It was a massive ballache as his hydraulic press locking nut kept blowing off the threads until we welded it to the press. Then even with 16 tonnes on the old bearing it still wouldn't come out, and heating it up with a 2000 degree propane torch was futile, so we had to get the oxyacetylene torch on it... 3700 degrees of flame did the trick, and burnt all the rust off too.

- Front and rear brake asymmetry - the brakes were fine on the road, but on the machine they were very unbalanced, the O/S were braking with much greater force than the N/S, and handbrake was useless.



So I used the failure of the brakes as the excuse I needed to fit the Mk2 ST 225 "ASBO" brakes and ST170 rear disc conversion.
I set about getting the last few parts I needed...
- New discs & pads all round for the 2.5T front and ST170 rear
- Redrilled the front brake discs to 4x108 as the Mk2 is a 5-stud
- 5mm hubcentric spacers which were then milled down to 4mm by an engineering company
- HEL performance stainless steel bleed nipples
- Motul RBF600 racing brake fluid


A week later I went back to my mates garage and we set about changing it all over.

Rather than swap the complete rear beam, we decided to remove the drum stub axles and replace with the disc stub axles. That did mean we needed to swap over a couple of things, as the ST170 has 2 brake hoses and a brake pipe on each side, whereas the drum setup just has one single brake hose. No idea why, its a very odd difference, but that meant the brackets needed cutting off the ST170 beam and welding to the beam on the car.

Between the disc stub axles and the rear beam, we fitted the 20mm Racing Puma axle spacers. In hindsight, 20mm was a bit too much, the wheels now stick out quite a bit, and scrub on bigger bumps, so I've got some 10mm ones on the way to replace them at some point soon.

Everything went pretty smoothly, and we had the whole lot done in around 4 hours. Got it MOT'd (somewhere else) literally 10 minutes after driving out my mates garage and passed no problem.

I can now actually lock the rear wheels up with the handbrake... although I only did it just the once just to see how good it was, my tyres cost too much and I'm not a chav.


Full brake spec is as follows
- Mk2 Focus ST 225 "ASBO" front brake calipers
- Mintex 320mm front discs & Mintex pads
- ST170 rear brake disc conversion with 20mm rear axle spacers
- Mintex 280mm rear discs and Mintex pads
- Goodridge Phantom Performance stainless steel braided hoses
- HEL Performance stainless steel bleed nipples
- Motul RBF600 racing brake fluid



Mk2 Focus ST 225 "ASBO" front calipers


Mk2 Focus ST 225 "ASBO" front calipers


ST170 rear disc setup and 20mm axle spacers


Mintex Mk2 ST discs


Mintex Mk2 ST discs


Mintex Mk2 ST discs and 4mm hubcentric spacers


ST170 rear beam, without brakes fitted


Goodridge Phantom braided hoses, Ezibleed brake bleeding kit, ST170 handbrake cable, and a few "thank you" goodies for my mate


All laid out on the workshop floor


Up on the ramps. God I wish I had a 2-post lift at home.


Front brakes done (we later discovered the spacer needs to go BEHIND the disc)


Front brakes and new braided hoses


Rear brakes done, brake fluid caused some paint to peel from calipers. They must have been a bit greasy still when I first painted them as its come off far too easy. I'll repaint them when the weather is drier and warmer.


Rear brakes and braided hoses (rear Eibach springs still look in excellent condition, nearly 2 years old now)



Now that the pads and discs are bedded in, the braking is incredible. The pedal is initially much softer (due to the standard master cylinder having to fill much bigger pistons in the calipers) but once the brakes bite the pedal gets really firm and very easy to modulate braking.
So it's nice and smooth round town, not snatchy, but when driving in a "spirited" fashion it becomes a lot easier to be very accurate with how much braking force you want.
The rear wheels are too far out though and keep catching on the arches when the rear compresses over bigger bumps and potholes or going over the bottom of a dip in a road at speed. Reducing the spacers to 10mm should make it perfect.
I had considered getting 10-15mm spacers for the front wheels, but actually they are bang on perfect, because the Mk2 ST discs have a much greater offset, which when combined with the 4mm spacers behind the disc probably space the wheel out by about 8mm over standard ST170 setup.

One day I may investigate a bigger master cylinder, but it's not a necessity and not even high up on my "desirable" list, so maybe if I run out of other ideas but have a bit of money and still want to keep the car then I'll consider it later.




I didn't manage to get any before/after shots, nor have I got any pics of the brakes behind the wheels, but when it's light tomorrow I'll try to remember to take a few.