Replacing front discs & pads

[Munzy]

I will be fitting new front discs and pads in the near future and would really appreciate some advice having watched various videos and searched forums.

01 - I can't find any videos for the Mk3/S-Max but there are some for the Mk4 Mondeo. I know they share a similar platform, are the brakes similar?

02 - some videos clamp the hose and open the bleed nipple whilst pushing the pistons back in, but some don't bother with this - is it essential to do this or can I just keep an eye on the reservoir levels?

Thanks in advance

[insanitybeard]

The idea of clamping the brake hose and opening the bleed nipple is so that the old fluid displaced by retracting the piston is expelled out of the system, this way the argument is that there's no risk of any contaminants trapped in the fluid returning to e.g the ABS modulator when the piston is retracted. Having said that, I've never observed this practice myself when retracting caliper pistons and unless somebody can tell me otherwise I can't really see why the fluid would be degraded more at the caliper than the modulator/ master cylinder, although it has been said (I think) that the rubber flexi hoses at a microscopic level do gradually allow moisture to pass through and degrade the fluid, plus the caliper is at the 'dirty' end of the system that gets hot and dusty, plus the calipers are at the low point of the system where any fluid-borne dirt and debris could settle. Up to you really, if you bother having the brake fluid changed fairly regularly (as I do) then I can't really see it being an issue.

[johnnyroper]

+1 for not clamping the hose off I just push piston back nice and slowly and once all done with pads pump pedal up and then a quick bleed before popping wheel back on.

[bigdave982]

+2 for not clamping
Although if you have been diligently topping up fluid as the level drops due to pad/disc wear, keep an eye on resevoir level asyou push piston back. This can result in fluid poring out of top

[davetech]

+3 for not clamping any hoses; just take the reservoir cap off.

Be sure to get the right sized disks though.
I bought mine from ECP (after putting my VRN into their webshite), then found out it actually should be the same disks as a Mondeo ST220.