Warning: rambling post ahead! :bigroll:
Man, what a disappointing two-week break. Between holiday shipping snafus and the cold, I got almost nothing installed on the car. I was hoping to have the Geforce 9" IRS and RacingBrake/SKF X-Tracker system finished, but pieces of them are still in the mail. Philistine, as you expected, my air compressor wasn't powerful enough. It couldn't even make the impact wrench turn over. On a more positive note, I was able to take measurements for the fuel system, do some preliminary work on the bucket, re-lubricate my Revshift upper control arm bushings with PTFE-based grease (more water-resistant), and sand/repaint my spindles and MightyMouse wheel spacers for the SKF X-Tracker hubs. I also made a couple of interesting discoveries.
Prime amongst the discoveries was a 2nd gen CTS (normal CTS) brake retrofit thread, where the author pointed out several V2 "splash guards" that we might want to consider using. This is especially true if/when you replace your OEM "closed" front hubs with "open" SKF hubs. When I say "open," I'm referring to the fact that all SKF hubs are machined to allow axles to pass through them.
Note that the big round shield is from the normal CTS--the user replaced this shield with the V2 version
For the front hubs, there are these little caps that go on the backs of the hubs and prevent crap from getting into the hub. For the rear, there's a big shield that protects the various ball joints on the knuckle from rotor heat. Although this slightly degrades the natural cooling capacity of the rear rotors, they are already far less hot than the front rotors. I can support that with measurements from my own car--in the interests of possibly selling my used DRT rotors, I measured their thickness. As it turns out, my front rotors are at about 50% life. My rear rotors, on the other hand, are at 80% life. That means that the rear calipers burned off a lot less rotor material over the last year.
Anyway, here's the linkage:
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forum...s/311106-diy-install-cts-v-brembo-brakes.html
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forum...s/311098-diy-install-cts-v-brembo-brakes.html
http://www.cadillacforums.com/forum...s/311082-diy-install-cts-v-brembo-brakes.html
You can get all of these parts, other than the little rear center caps, on Amazon for next to nothing ($14 for the each front piece and $60 for each rear piece). Luke @ Lindsay has the rear center caps for about $12. Even if you don't care about the rear brake shields, I bet your front shields look like crap. Here are mine:
You will want to note that these shields do not include a mounting point to clip the ABS sensors onto. I'll let you know how that goes when they arrive this week. Amazon Linkage (there is one left and right P/N):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055ABY9G/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0055ABZ2C/ref=oh_details_o02_s01_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007QB7PFE/ref=oh_details_o02_s02_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007QB7PYU/ref=oh_details_o02_s02_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Moving right along, I took a yellow
Scotch-Brite Reloc bristle disc to my spindles and MightyMouse spacers to clean them up. I use two 3/16" spacers on each front wheel to improve my V's stance with the Forgestar wheels.
While the contact surfaces on the spindle looked great, the rest of it looked like crap. So I hit it with POR-15.
After reading through the SKF manual, I noticed that they recommend some kind of anti-seize lubricant to fill airgap between the spindle and the hub. I picked up some
copper Permatex anti-seize lubricant, which is good up to 1800°F. Hard to see in this picture, but it sparkles:
Philistine, I have no idea how you managed to get that second, shorter fuel pump strainer to bend into the bucket without putting a ton of stress on the pump connector and the bucket itself. I had a couple of extra strainers, as pictured below, but they all had straight connectors. So, I wound up buying a smaller
Delphi FS0091 strainer for the secondary pump. I'm hoping that the angle on the connector will allow me to improve on the way the pumps sit in the bucket.
Because of the way I clocked the T-bolt clamps on the fuel pump outlets (see above picture), I do not need to hold the pumps above the strainers using a worm gear clamp. The T-bolt acts like a stand-off--similar to the plastic standoff on the OEM pump/filter assembly. On a semi-related note, I bought a slightly
smaller 15mm (19/32") Forstner bit to increase the force on the O-ring in the extra electrical connector located on the fuel bucket lid. I'm hoping that this ensures a great seal against fuel vapor.