Brake Upgrade MK4 Golf Rear - Volkswagen Corrado G60

Guides > Brake Upgrade MK4 Golf Rear

Upgrade the rear brakes on your Corrado G60 with MK4 Golf items with this how to guide. If you have any questions you can leave a comment .

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A good rear brake upgrade on the Corrado is to use Mk4 golf rear brake calipers. These calipers don't suffer with a seizing handbrake mechanism like the earlier ones do and they are also considerably lighter being alloy. The conversion is pretty straight forward, although there are a couple of thing that you need to consider.

The Mk4 golf calipers use a banjo bolt fitting, so some upgrade/conversion hoses are required (Covered later) and also, depending on which mk4 calipers you get, you may just need to squeeze up the handbrake lever on the caliper so that the nipple on the handbrake cable doesn't pop through.

NOTE: Your standard Corrado brake carriers, brake pads, handbrake cables will all work fine. This is a guide only and brakes should always be worked on by those who are capable, I myself take no responsibility for anyone attempting anything shown here.
BUY: Goodridge Rear Caliper Conversion Brake Lines

NOTE: Parts below marked with Red * shown below are optional.

Tools and parts required

Tools required

13mm spanner.
15mm spanner.
7/16 Brake pipe spanner.
9/16 or 14mm brake pipe spanner.
Axle stands.
Jack.
Torque wrench, 13mm socket (13mm may differ)
Vice grips or similar.

Parts required

Mk4 Golf rear calipers:
Left VW part number: 1J0 615 423(D or G)
Right VW part number: 1J0 615 424(D,F or H)
Standard Corrado rear carriers:
Left VW part number: 1HO 615 425
Right VW part number: 1HO 615 425
Rear carrier bolts x4:
VW part number: NO 139 123
Conversion brake hoses with banjo fitting to go from mk2/corrado to Mk4:
Goodridge part number: SVW0506-2P
Brake fluid.
* ABS Rings:
VW part number: 1J0 614 149
* Corrado rear wheel bearings x2:
VW part number: 191 598 625
* Corrado rear brake discs x2:
VW part number (16v/G60): 357 615 601
VW part number (16v/G60): 357 615 601B
* Handbrake cables x2:
1H0 609 721A for 89-95 (To Chassis 50-S-000361)
1H0 609 721E for late 95 (From Chassis 50-S-000362)

Upgrade Your Corrado Rear Brakes

Obviously start by loosening the rear wheel bolts, jacking up the car and safely securing it on axle stands. Remove the wheels, you can place them under the sills if you like, or just use more axle stands.
Now you need to remove the handbrake cables from the calipers. They are situated at the bottom of the calipers. To do so, start by removing the metal clips which just pull off.
To remove the actual cable from the caliper, you need to:
A: Remove trim around handbrake lever within the car and loosen off the two 10mm nuts (One on each cable)
B: Alternatively if you like or are already under the car and replacing the cables with NEW ones, squeeze the handbrake mechanism. You can use vice grips or similar. Once you have squeezed the mechanism, the 'pip' on the cable will pull out of the lever pictured. Hang the cable out of the way for now.
As you look at the brake caliper, on the reverse are two 13mm headed bolts which secure the caliper to the carrier. One top, one bottom. You need to remove these. To do so you need to hold a 15mm headed bolt. Ignore the text in this image 'New conversion hoses' for now. Once these two 13mm headed bolts are removed, the caliper will pull off.
Now you have the handbrake cable removed, and the caliper hanging loose. Take a breather and maybe have a tidy up, make sure you have everything to hand. The next step may cause issues if you do not have brake pipe spanners and/or the nuts are damaged from previous donkeys. So be prepared.
The caliper is now only connected via the rubber/flexi brake hose pictured above. This brake hose now needs to be removed. To remove it, first clean up the two nuts at either side of the fitting, scrape them with a flat screwdriver, use sandpaper or whatever you can. Test your spanners on them to make sure they sit on properly and snugly. If they don't, keep cleaning them up. You need to use brake pipe fitting spanners ideally.
The flexi hose nut (Larger) is 9/16 or 14mm.
The hard brake line nut (Smaller) is 7/16.
Hold the spanner on the rubber hose end tight/solid, and undo the smaller hard line nut. As the fitting becomes loose, you may be able to hold the caliper and twist it as you undo the fitting. Once removed you are left with the hard line on the car, and a caliper now removed.
Good job if you got this far! Ready for the new bits to go on now. You need to fit your conversion hoses to the fitting you just undid. Screw the hoses on by hand, and just nip them by hand, not tight yet.
At this point you can replace discs/pads/wheel bearings/abs sensor rings/carriers etc if you like. Otherwise, pick up your new mk4 golf caliper and place it over the brake pads/onto the carrier.
Refit the two 13mm headed bolts you removed in step 5 and torque them up. Again using a 15mm spanner to hold the larger nut, and 13mm to tighten. The torque settings are actually different on corrado and mk4 as listed below, so somewhere in between is good.
28Nm / 26 ft.lb - golf
35Nm / 26 ft.lb - corrado
If you reuse the old bolts, add a little thread lock. Otherwise you need new ones.
You can now fit and torque up the banjo bolts pictured bottom right in the image with a copper washer either side of the hose. Be careful torquing them up as the calipers are alloy!
Torque to: 35Nm / 26 ft.lb
Now that the caliper is fitted. You have a banjo bolt that is torqued up, but you left the hard line end only hand tight. Now is the time to nip it up. Again using your brake pipe spanners as in step 7. I'm unsure of any torque setting here, so just get a good 'nip' on them.
The flexi hose nut (Larger) is 9/16 or 14mm.
The hard brake line nut (Smaller) is 7/16.
Hold the spanner on the conversion hose end tight/solid, and tighten the smaller hard line nut.
Now just double check.
A/ Caliper is nipped up via the two 13mm headed bolts to between 28Nm/26 ft.lb - golf or 35Nm/26 ft.lb - corrado.
B/ Banjo bolt is torqued up to 35Nm / 26 ft.lb with a copper washer either side of the actual hose.
C/ The conversion hose is nipped up to the hard line brake pipe on the car.
Nearly there! Slide handbrake cable into caliper, the 'pip' on the end of the cable may be too small for the actual caliper lever (It's a mk4 caliper dependent thing). If so, carefully squeeze up the lever so that the handbrake cable end doesn't fall through the lever.
Refit the metal clip you removed earlier.
Pretty much done!
Remove brake fluid reservoir cap and gently but firmly press the brake pedal until you get some 'feel'.You will now need to bleed the brakes.