Brake Caliper Teardown (yes, with pictures!)

swooshdave said:

Maxxfli said:

I have to say your pretty lucky. The hard chrome on my inner piston had chipped and started to rust. I made a spanner with 2 bolts and a piece of metal drilled out to the right width to remove the plug. To get the inner puck out I used the biggest easy out I could find. Worked like a charm.... no soaking, no heat, no drilling through the caliper.
Heres your next step.
And after being turned an painted.

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You think you're joking about the disc, but wait till I post a picture of the disk I have!

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Think I can salvage it? Don't even want to check min thickness until it's blasted.

It may not look good but I bet it would throw you over the bars if you used it as is! (Don't) LOL

swooshdave said:

RennieK said:

swooshdave said:

Try heat and air before you go the grease route. When dealing with aluminum and steel this is ideal. :mrgreen:

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I still don't have a compressor.

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The grease it is! Air compressors (cheap Chinese or used ones) aren't that expensive and they are SO useful.

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It's at the top of the list. I want something powerful enough to do a little sand blasting and preferably 110 volts.

RennieK said:

It's at the top of the list. I want something powerful enough to do a little sand blasting and preferably 110 volts.

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From my experience an air compressor that size can only do VERY little sandblasting.

RennieK said:

It's always neat when you can improvise when you don't have that special tool as long as you don't deface your valuable parts in the process. Here's my free peg spanner:

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Art # : CS-1210
Name: Caliper End plug tool
Price: $99.95
Description:
Essential to have if you're thinking about rebuilding you front caliper.

Pegs fit in the end plate and the other end of the tool is for loosening the speedo hub nut.

Made in England by Norton Andover.

**Tip: use a little heat on the caliper end plate and this tool will work like a charm!

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Ok, while I'm not as cheap as RennieK :mrgreen: even I flinch at $99 for this peg spanner. Especially when my $4 one worked so nicely.

Wow, the price has gone way up on the peg spanner. I think it was $60 when I bought mine a few years ago. It's very nice to have because it also fits the bearing lockrings on the front and rear wheels. I hate having to use punches and hammers.


Debby

$99.95

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The Andover Norton retail price for the 063965 peg spanner is £28.60 GBP or $42.90 USD (according to the currency entered).

Even allowing for the fact that parts may cost a litte more from a US supplier, I do think the seller is probably making a tidy profit on that item?

Art # : CS-1210
Name: Caliper End plug tool
Price: $99.95
Description:
Essential to have if you're thinking about rebuilding you front caliper.

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Maybe 'Essential if you're planning on rebuilding 5 calipers a week'!
You're well on the way to a Lockheed racing caliper at that price :shock:

As I said eariler in the thread, I used a couple of 1/4" bolt shanks clamped in the vice, but I was able to bolt the caliper onto the fork leg and use that as a lever to rotate the caliper body against the plug, as the forks were off the bike at the time.

A few years ago I bought a peg spanner for the Triumph wheel bearing lockring...the handle bent followed rapidly by the pegs!
At least it looked the right shape to start with :roll:
I'm confident the AN tool will be better quality than this though.

Since there is a lot of interest in wrenches...

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/st ... 60/0?N=377 710 1507&Ne=0&Ntt=Fittings &Ntx=mode matchallpartial&page=CategoryDisplayLevel1&isLTokenURL=true&storeNum=11&subdeptNum=70&classNum=71

(So much for a short post! That is one long URL.) These wrenches have been around for along time for use on boats. The model here with the SS pins is a good one and will handle a lot of use before it deforms. It wouldn't be very hard to fab one up made in a similar fashion using bolts for the pins.

Russ

Think I can salvage it? Don't even want to check min thickness until it's blasted.[/quote]

It looks pretty bad but you would be surprised what you can turn that into. I cleaned mine up a bit with the wire wheel before drilling it. After the drilling was through I had it turned by a local machine shop. Did the chamfer after that and went to town with a serious wire wheel on a drill for the inside. Cost $40 to have it turned. When its turned the brake surface area will look new. You might want to soak her in naval jelly before tackling the project but i think you can avoid having it blasted. The stock rotor is .260" thick and has to be at least .245" thick to have it turned or ground. Took about 8 hours of work from start to finish on my rotor.

L.A.B. said:

$99.95

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The Andover Norton retail price for the 063965 peg spanner is £28.60 GBP or $42.90 USD (according to the currency entered).

Even allowing for the fact that parts may cost a litte more from a US supplier, I do think the seller is probably making a tidy profit on that item?

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OldBritts has the spanner listed for $82.37 USD. Such a deal, huh? US suppliers are well aware of how expensive it is to ship a small order from the UK to the USA, and set their prices accordingly.

Debby

Maxxfli said:

It looks pretty bad but you would be surprised what you can turn that into. I cleaned mine up a bit with the wire wheel before drilling it. After the drilling was through I had it turned by a local machine shop. Did the chamfer after that and went to town with a serious wire wheel on a drill for the inside. Cost $40 to have it turned. When its turned the brake surface area will look new. You might want to soak her in naval jelly before tackling the project but i think you can avoid having it blasted. The stock rotor is .260" thick and has to be at least .245" thick to have it turned or ground. Took about 8 hours of work from start to finish on my rotor.

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Good suggestion. I'll hit it with a wire wheel just to see if I have enough thickness. Then get it blasted and turned.

From what I can tell min thickness is .250 which means after turning. Does this sound right?

I thought I'd add another method of removing the pistons from a stuck caliper.
After letting the WD40 soak in for a week or so I finally got around to getting my caliper apart. Still no compressor or torch so 1st. I loosened the outside piston by driving it further in, cleaning out the interior path with a wire brush and then filling up the hollow in the back of the piston with washers so I could pry it outwards bit by bit till I could sneak another washer in and pry some more. It took a stack of washers but it slide right out eventually.


I scoured out the bore some more with my wire brush and then used inertia to remove the back piston. Again, 1st. I banged it deeper in to loosen it. Next I used a 30 lb. piece of steel to act as an anvil or very solid surface and then just cupped the caliper in my hand and smacked it down hard onto the steel plate. After about 15 of these I could see the piston had moved about 1/32". Just enough to encourage me to keep trying. It took about 60 or 70 smashes onto the hard plate to get it out and my hand was getting a work out but eventually it popped out.


After 25 years the pistons were corroded in there pretty good. Guess I'll have to replace these.

Dave I think min thickness is a bit less than .250.... I believe that is is somewhere around .240 or .235

Rennie I must say thats impressive. I tried the old whack and bang method but after a few tries my hand didnt like me anymore.

Maxxfli said:

Dave I think min thickness is a bit less than .250.... I believe that is is somewhere around .240 or .235

Rennie I must say thats impressive. I tried the old whack and bang method but after a few tries my hand didnt like me anymore.

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I took a cursory measurement and with the rust it was about .260 so I'll get it blasted and turned.

I've used Rip Van Winkle's method before, but only smacked the caliper enough times ON A SOFT PINE BOARD to get the edge of the puck clear in the gap to insert a screwdriver, then enough to insert washers, etc.

No damage done.

RennieK said:

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And that didn't damage the caliper?

I also seem to recall my Andover wrench costing less than $50 on e-bay; what a great tool.

..and yes, heat helps (in moderation)

RennieK said:

I thought I'd add another method of removing the pistons from a stuck caliper.

After 25 years the pistons were corroded in there pretty good. Guess I'll have to replace these.

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I forgot to ask, you used heat didn't you?

Only the heat from my hand although it's a balmy 7' Celsius here (should be riding). No damage to anything, even the lougheed writing looks undisturbed. Eventually I cupped it in my hand with a rag to isolate my hand/bones ffom the shock.