Stace came over early this morning so that he could swap in new front wheel spacers, re-pack bearings, and Mar-tack the axles. So he discovers both of his birfs had a single crack on each so he had to use his trail spares.....now he has no spares <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
Anyways, as shown in the next 5 pics, you can see that we cut a simple slot in the dust cover brake bracket and that allowed us to place the caliper out of the way so we could assemble spindle assembly without the caliper dangling nearby. Simple and so easy to do.










While he was here, I upgraded his 12" coils to 14".....this allowed me to get rid of the spacers we welded in there for the desired lift. Looks real clean right now

I did that when I first did my SAS. However, I found with the stock backing plates and the wider FJ rotors that small rocks would get stuck between the backing plate and the rotor. It made one heck of a noise and it grooved the rotor. I cut the center ring out of the backing plate and cut the brackets off my IFS backing plates, straightened them out, drilled a hole in them. The top caliper bolt holds them in place and no more breaking the brake line loose when I service the front end.

That's how I did mine too. Makes front end maintainence and birf replacements much easier. Especially on the trail.

I did likewise many years ago. Had the stock brake line bracket, notched and welded it to the steering arm. That way it was both easy to remove if needed, or often you did not even have to remove it at all.

Timing is everything. I was just about to post asking how you guys swap birf without having to bleed the friggin' brakes. I HATE bleeding brakes.... <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/zombie.gif" alt="" />

dust shields are over rated.