Announcing New Caliper Restoration Service, sparked by #11 and Al's LE set... Options

[Eric_Shea]

Hi Gang,

I'm going to go too far into details because I've posted enough threads on caliper restoration however, we're going to follow along with Johny B's (no... not Brandmeier... our very own "You can call me Al" Johny B.) caliper restoration for show cars. We've decided to offer this as a service to those who "must" have authentic calipers for their cars. It will be $325.00 per pair fronts or rears.

The idea is to literally restore the entire caliper so it will pass strict judging criteria. This means, new handbrake arm seals and black oxide/oiled fasteners.

Let's start with the handbrake seal. On a standard rebuild the handbrake seal is usually not needed. The entire caliper gets plated with the arm in place. You get a one color caliper. This saves a great deal of money as the seal kits have been $49.00 each (we've found a new source and we now sell them for $29.00 each). Even at those prices, it is usually best, for a standard rebuild, to find a core that doesn't need the extra parts. Why? Decent Core = $25.00 (or less) each... Seal Kit = $29.00 each. For this style of restoration we need to have the caliper body yellow and the handbrake arm clear. So... it's a necessity.

Now... black oxide and oiled fasteners will give the original appearance. Again, with a standard rebuild the 7mm fasteners (which are almost impossible to find) are plated with yellow zinc. To be factory correct we need the fasteners to be black. Again, this costs more money but will net the proper results.

In the end, these will look like brand new ATE calipers from the factory.

So... on to this rebuild. This car has fewer than 50k miles on it. I believe Al stated "they don't need to be rebuild but they need to have the finish correct"... surprising what happens as a car sits. These were actually fairly rough more in terms of what I expected off such a low mileage car.

Fronts - The right front caliper was stuck. It took some good doing to get the pistons out. The left was fine. There was also evidence that someone else had rebuilt the fronts at one time. The right front inner piston has the tell-tale chips on the piston edge. The pads appear to be the second set as they don't match the rears (which I believe to be original) and they actually have "more" pad material left on them compared to the rears (usually the other way around on a balanced set as the fronts do most of the work.) The through bolts were OK but one was fairly rusty. The brake fluid was old but otherwise, these were in very good shape.

Rears - The left rear was rough. The pin was actually stuck/rusted in the caliper. We had to tear the entire caliper apart to break it loose. I bent two drifts trying to get it out before I decided to simply leave it in and tear the caliper down around it. We know there are spiders where Al lives. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Again, fasteners were in good shape with a little bit of internal rust on some. The rear pad springs are probably unsalvageable for this application. One spring fell apart in my hands.

So... there's all the gruesome tales about what can happen to 50k mile calipers. The car may be pampered but, always look for tell-tale signs (braking to one side, hotter than normal caliper temps, brake pad smell etc.) of stuck pistons.

Here are some pics... next we'll show the plated units then the final assembly.

Fronts:


Rears:


Front fasteners. The rusted one was stuck in the housing:


Piston with a small bit of dust cover cap damage:


Spidey's!:


Stuck rear pin:


Rear fasteners with some more internal rust: