Hey guy's fitted my cossie 283mm brake setup tonight and I'm well impressed! Thought I'd do a little "How to", this guide assumes you know sort of what you're doing, and that you have prepped all the parts beforehand, but it's almost this easy, here goes.

Front Brakes

You will need:-

• Escort/Sierra Cossie 4x4 calipers & carriers- Ebay £80
• Escort/Sierra Cossie 4x4 Pads - Ferodo DS Performance - Burton Power £45
• Sierra 2wd Cossie 283mm Disks - Delphi - Local Motor Factors £70
• Braided brake hoses - Goodridge - Burton Power £40
• 4x 1mm thick washers to fit over caliper bolts - B&Q - 10p
• Brake fluid - Dot 4 or 5.1 - Local Motor Factors - £6

Procedure:-

01) Remove wheel
02) Remove old caliper and disk
03) Remove old flexi hose
04) Put new disk into place tighly bolt it on with 2 wheel nuts
05) Push the new caliper's piston home
06) Insert the new pads
07) Bolt new braided hose into the caliper
08) Bolt new caliper into place, using the 1mm washers between the hub and the carrier
09) Bolt the braided hose into the hose clamp and join it to the solid hose
10) Bleed brake fluid through as per usual
11) Replace the wheel ensuring the disk is perfectly fitted and all bolts are tight
12) Repeat on the other side

Some pics of mine:-

OLD:


NEW:












It took me 1 hour and a quarter on the one side, but once I'd done it, the other side was easily 30 mins. So I'd say it'll take you 2 hours to do all in, and with the parts I bought will cost you around £240 - £250.

Rear Brakes

You will need:-

• Sierra Cossie 2wd/XR4x4 calipers & carriers- Ebay £60
• Sierra Cossie 2wd/XR4x4 - Ferodo DS Performance - Burton Power £65
• Sierra 2wd Cossie 273mm solid rear Disks - Local Motor Factors £40
• Braided brake hoses - Goodridge rear disk conversion - Burton Power £35
• Handbrake cable (First Line Parts FKB1340, Ford Escort 92>95 with rear disks excl. 4x4) - £19.99
• Half moon from the MK4 handbrake cable
• Escort MK4 rear disk conversion backing plates - Auto Specialists - £20
• 4x 9mm thick spacers to fit over caliper bolts - Made by a relative
• Brake fluid - Dot 4 or 5.1 - Local Motor Factors - £6

Note:
The banjo bolts supplied in the Goodridge rear braided hose sets are too long for XR4x4 callipers. They will need shortening by around 2mm.

Procedure:-

01) Remove wheel
02) Remove old drum
03) Remove centre nut
04) Remove Hub
05) Remove the brake shoes by turning the retaining washers 90 degrees
06) Remove the handbrake cable by removing the spring washer
07) Unbolt the brake hose from the backing plate
08) Remove the 4 backing plate retaining bolts and discard the backing plate
09) Bolt on the new caliper retaining backing plate torquing the bolts correctly
10) You will need to grind corners off the original bolts for the hub to fit back on correctly (see picture). Alternatively you can countersync the backing plates and use countersunk cap head bolts.
11) Replace the hub and centre nut
12) Remove the flexi and solid brake hoses from either side of the strut
13) Put the disc in place secured by some wheel bolts
14) Bolt new carriers into place, using the 9mm spacers between the backing plate and the carrier
15) Place the pads in the carrier
16) Screw the hose into the Caliper. I found with the goodridge "RST rear disk conversion" pipes I got from Burton Power that the banjo bolt was too long. This meant that fluid leaked from the joint as the bolt was bottoming out. I shortened it by about 2mm which did the job
17) Bolt the caliper to the carrier
18) Locate the hose in a suitable place and connect it to the solid pipes.
19) Replace the wheel ensuring the disk is perfectly fitted and all bolts are tight
20) Place the car on the floor and settle the suspension (RS Turbo's with ABS must!!!)
21) Bleed brake fluid through as per usual
22) Repeat on the other side
23) Remove the half moon from the new handbrake cable and replace it with the one from your MK4 cable.
24) Fit the handbrake cable to the calipers and then slacken it off to connect the half moon to the ramaining handbrake cable.
25) Tighten the cable with the plastic adjusters.

























Now you're all thinking "Handbrake cable". The one I've found that fits is the First Line Parts FKB1340 which is for Ford Escort's made between '92 and '95 with rear disks excluding 4x4's. Don't forget to retain the half moon from the RST cable as the one on the new cable is too wide for the tunnel.

It took me 3 and a half days on the one side (gathering the right parts from the off will help!!!), but once I'd done it, the other side was easily under 2 Hours. So I'd say it'll take a competent DIY mechanic 4 hours odd to do all in correct parts permitting, and with the parts I bought will cost you around £200 - £250.

Also it seems you dont need to use solid disks and 2wd calipers. Sexr3i has used 4x4 Cosworth calipers and disks for his conversion.

Comments welcome as usual!

Lee

 

Sorry to be a pessimist...........

Are they EBC pads

 

usally take short time. wath is wrong with EBC?

 

Have you not seen the picture floating around

Everyone knows EBC are awful

 

Nope! But the original disks and pads were

Lee

 

Very useful mate, well done

 

SafeChav: hmm, no i havent... but I am using ferodo anyway on my rst, no EBC there and mintex on my Audi

 

Just about to do the very same conversion on my S1. I have all the bits bar the pads so any recommendations would be welcome.

I have 1.6mm washers (they were ones I had at work) will these be ok?

 

Well the pads everyone on here recommend are Ferodo DS or Mintex 1144. I went for the DS ones because there were a few more recommendations for them than mintex, but it's up ot you!!

I'm not sure on the 1.6mm washers. I used 1mm ones as recommended on here and used a vernier caliper to check. If you lookat this pic:-



you'll see disk sits perfectly centralised in the caliper.

Not a hard job to do at all!

Lee

 

front on mine

 

Top work mate maybe worth PMing a mod and get it made into a sticky as there are always people asking what they need and how to do it

 

I created it because sooooo many people (myself included) keep asking about brake conversions,, and cossie ones seem a popular choice, I'll give it a go now........

Lee

 

£70 for standard disks is a bit steep considering you can get drilled and grooved for £74 and 40 grooved for £60

 

Where from? Hope your not suggesting EBC

 

would i suggest such rubbish???? Sport Brakes and CRN Performance do them

 

Good price and they look ok, but I'd be very weary of using them they arent branded at all, not even EBC branded . The cheapest you'll find a set of branded 40 groove disks for the cossie is £190, the cheapest of any disks on the net outside ebay are £120 odd.

A set of OEM cossie disks will set you back £200 from R&B, so £70 in hindsight is ok!

They look good but I wouldnt use them.

Lee

 

absolute rubbish sorry mate!!! i have been using them on my 230 bhp erst for over 2 years now,done countless track days and i allways drive it hard!! they are spot on!! i have also fitted them to 5 road rally cars with no complaints what so ever

 

mine is from rallydesigne

 

Had EBC in two cars now and had no problems...
*Not seen any pic neither

 

Can we now make it an official rule if anyone asks how to do a cossie brake upgrade we give them a bitch slap

 

ehm, how to upgrade to cossie brake

oh no, they could still ask about the rear

 

just done the conversion on mine. What calliper bolts did u use? my original ones wouldnt fit for some reason, had to go back and get mondeo v6 ones as they use the same callipers and carriers. Also, my disc fitted perfectly in the carrier etc wen using the washer but i found it was grinding on the calliper carrier causing it to not spin freely. So a tiny bit of carrier was ground back

 

sorry if im stupid, but i have wondered that how u fix the wheel on? 2 bolt?

 

well, to put the wheel on. I just undo those 2 bolts, put the wheel on, and then put 4 bolts in

 

jarnok The two bolts were probably fitted to hold the disc in place whilst the caliper was fitted.

How come the cossie discs have no retaining/positioning screw like most other discs?
I know the main wheel bolts hold it in place when fully fitted, but it
1: holds the disc in place with no wheel fitted
2: stops the hub from rotating when lining the wheel up with the wheel bolt holes.

 

good questions these. We have real hard MOT inspections here and if the inspector notice this kind of thing would the MOT fail.

 

UK mot'ers are not allowed to remove anything from the car, so they wouldn't know there was no 'holding' bolt fitted even if there was soemwhere to put it.

 

but examle if u have 17" wheels which are model that u could see almost whole disk then u could notice that there is no any nuts or srews

 

No mate, you still would not see it as the screw-hole would be behind the wheel hub.

In this pic, the countersunk hole is the locating hole. That is in line with the main wheel bolt holes, therefore you would not see it with the wheel fitted.

 

I have a question please. If you are upgrading to cossie calipers and disks which are larger than the erst ones... don't you need to upgrade the Brake Master Cylinder as well? If yes, do you need to put the cossie one as well or do you know about something else that fits better? Thanks

 

kool

 

rs shawn not having a locating hole isn't a safety aspect as jarnok is saying, its merely there as you say to make the wheel easy to fit without the hub spinning and causing the alignment problems.

The reason they don't have it........is because the brakes we use are all from cars with wheel studs pressed into the hubs

 

Aah..so they only need nuts anyway..as opposed to the RST bolts.

 

Yep

Duno what people are banging on about saying its a failure?! like that tiny M6 screw is going to be crucial or take any stress before it sheered off

 

No, the original master cylinder can cope fine.

Here's a goodun tho, why do the mk3 & 4's have bolts instead of studs and nuts???

 

Just BECAUSE ok

 

 

 

coz theyre old cars i imagine

 

What, old like the 3drs which also have nuts

Maybe it's due to the size of disc. Smaller disc'd cars have smaller lighter wheels so use bolts as it's not too bad holding the wheel in place (yeh right!), whilst larger disc cars normally have larger wheels and a nut is simply for ease of fitment of supporting the weight of the wheel.