I have been working on these original Maico disk brakes for a few years now and it's great I am now at the point where I am happy to be able to use them.
First up, I sent the rotor housings off for wet blasting. They came back looking beautiful. You could tell the alloy used back then was of an excellent quality. Next I took the calipers with me to Sydney where Boris (http://www.vintageveedub.com.au/) and I dismantled them with the help of a big press (they were seized from having sat for 30 years). I left the calipers with Boris and he arranged to have them honed after having been blasted.
The brake pads were also sent off to be re-lined (being unique to he Maico they had to be re-lined). They came back perfect as expected.
We ended up throwing the original Maico pistons away and using some pieces from a Ford F100 (from memory) and standard off the shelf brake seals etc. I know we made it an easy thing for future replacements of items if required.
I had the steel disks sent off for cadmium plating to keep them from rusting and although they look a bit naff right now, once the brakes are applied the first couple of times, the gold on the disk will burn off and it will look fine.
Rounding out the works, I have only just now got the aluminium rotor housings back from chromatic chemical coating (http://keyman.com.au/) and I think they look brilliant. Although the coating isn't a super long term coating, it is better than bare alloy (and it's not as though the car is going to spend even 1 x second in the weather). The fasteners were replaced with new zinc plated high tensile and original bearings replaced with new Japanese made items as well as seals.
Nice looking set up huh? And period correct for the notchback. I am lead to believe this set are basically the only ones on the planet now so it's nice to see them in this restored condition and able to be utilised.
