Since I picked the donor up I wasn’t too confident in its braking ability, just didn’t seem to bite like it should. The discs felt a little worn but not heavily, pads looked like they could do with replacing.

As luck would have it, mx5parts had a special offer, 4 discs and pads for £80. Couldn’t really say no to that! Ok, they were nothing special, pattern discs and EBC Ultimax pads but I’m not planning on tracking the donor so they should suffice.

From what I can gather, Ultimax are an OEM equivalent from EBC so I’m not expecting anything special. They didn’t come with shims or clips/springs so I’ve had to re-use what was already on there, which didn’t include shims anyway. We’ll see if it squeals!

So, the old brakes came off and there was nothing massively untoward with the passenger side. Looks like there was a slight patch where the pad wasn’t making much contact but this photo doesn’t show it too well, which suggests how slight it was.

Drivers side was a different story. The wheel was hard to turn in places, suggesting some kind of warpage on the disc. It certainly didn’t seem to be running true. Upon removal, it certainly appeared that something wasn’t right. One of the pads was roughly half worn as expected, but the other was nearly completely finished. It also hadn’t worn evenly – I’m wondering if the caliper is up to scratch.

So, the fronts are all fitted. I’ve got a trip up north and a trip to France coming before Easter so I’ll check the wear after that. I might plan to replace or at least refurb the calipers during the build. They’re £140 each, so a touch too much to simply take a punt on really. I’ll make the decision closer to the time.

Next up, rear brakes! A slightly more involved job so that may wait until the weekend. I want to take the landrover out for a play on Sunday, so it might wait till during the week after…