How To Install Baer Four-Wheel Disc Brakes

Four bolts mount the caliper to its anchor plate, which is mounted to the spindle with two safety-wired bolts. Normally, you'd simply unbolt the complete caliper/anchor-plate assembly from the spindle and get on with it, but we wanted to show the components separately to illustrate. CDC's Craig Colden first removed the caliper from its anchor. For now, he left the brake flex line connected and rested the caliper on the hoist.

The rotor and hub come off as an assembly after removing the dust cap, cotter pin, nut lock, adjusting nut, and flat washer. None of this hardware is reused, nor are the wheel bearings, as the kit contains suitable replacements. In fact, the new hubs come completely assembled and packed with Redline synthetic grease.

We didn't retain the splash shields, which are secured to the spindles with three bolts (arrows.)

As we said, this caliper anchor normally comes off with the caliper as a unit. We took them off separately to show how the anchor plate mounts to the spindle at two points (arrows), and to show the mass of this cast-iron piece compared to the kit's billet-aluminum replacement shown in the next photo.

These black-anodized billet brackets can now be pre-assembled to the calipers using one hex-head bolt and one capscrew (arrow). But before mounting these caliper/bracket assemblies to the spindles...

...the stock flex line, shown here, is disconnected from the chassis brake hard line, and the junction block and its mounting bracket are unbolted from the framerail.

Replacement L-brackets are included in the kit to secure the new braided flex line/hard line junction to the chassis (using the original bolts).

At this point, Baer's anodized front hubs can go on the spindles. These come with all necessary mounting hardware, including dust caps not shown here.

With the kit's 13x11/16 rotors held in place by a wheel stud or two, the caliper/bracket assemblies can be bolted to the spindles. The Baer rotors are directionally vented, and are therefore side-specific for proper cooling (we're looking at the driver side). Proper orientation of the rotor grooves (if so equipped) is also important to minimize "carbon smearing" from the pad material.