For our cars callipers we decided to be adventurous. Before we purchased them I (Tom) did some research into what callipers where available for our type of setup. Naturally the first thing that came into my head was BREMBO! After seeing the classic red coloured callipers on high performance cars I thought I may as well see what sort of pricing it would be for a pair. I then found out that Brembo do not sell their callipers right out the box, they are fitted to performance cars that roll out of the show room. Armed with this new knowledge I hunted Ebay for a bargain, looking for callipers that had been pulled from old 406 coupes or alphas. A few came up but breakers were asking £400-500 for a pair of second hand ones. I also found out that they all have different brackets and may not suit my setup.
I did find some nice black callipers from
and old e36 to suit sierra brackets. The only problem was that the minimum
wheel size they would fit would be 17". This restricted our wheel choice
so I had to have a re think.
In the end we opted to go down the route of
the sierra cosworth rear callipers and standard sierra fronts. When we bought
them they where covered in a gold electroplate finish. While this was fairly
nice I didn't really stand out and wouldn't be noticed behind the wheel.
Following our yellow and chrome theme we had the bright idea to paint them
yellow. I trekked down to Halfords and picked up some yellow calliper paint.
The brakes where disassembled and we began coating it. After 3 coats of paint
the calliper looked O.K. the problem with the paint was if you accidentally re
stroked it in the same place it would drag and when it dried smear marks could
be seen. Another thing to note was the paint compound was horrible, it dried up
into strings on your brush and didn't come out in white spirit. Fearing the
paint would clog up our spray gun we opted to find someone who could paint them
with a professional finish.
We sent them off to be painted. When they
where delivered back to us to looked stunning, well worth it
We un boxed them and fitted the brake pads
inside the callipers. This was easy for the rears, they just slot and clip in
either side. The springy clip on the pads keep them in position.
A week
away.....
My dads off on
a cruise so its just me, the car and my common sense
Fitting the callipers was not that hard of
a job. The discs were pushed onto the hubs and secured with a wheel nut while I
aligned the brake onto the bracket. There are only two mounting bolts which
screw and secure it in place. The problem I was having was that the actual
calliper was not sitting dead centre over the disc, and was therefore fouling
it when it span. To resolve this I filed the bracket lugs so it could be
aligned properly. I only took a small amount off, something like 1.5mm, but it
was enough to centralise it. After it had been filed washers were placed
between the lug and the calliper and it was central! This same process was used
for the other side so that it sits nicely and doesn't rub on the disk.
The next job to do after the bolts where
torqued up was to fit both the hand brake cable and the flexi hose.
The hand brake cable should enter the
calliper from the top, going through a round hole near the spring. After you
thread it though the square end of the cable needs to latch onto the spring hook.
The cable will be P clipped to the hub carrier at a later date so its not
waving all over the place when driving. Lastly the Flexi hose was fitted to the
callipers. This routes from the brake pipe that is connected to the rear union
to the underside of the calliper. There are two holes on the bottom, One with a
nipple end and one with an allen key fitting. The allen key fitting needs to be
taken out and the flexi hose screwed into the hole. The other nipple on the
underside is a breather hole and should not be taken out. |
| Underside of the rear calliper |
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