So I'm trying ro replace all the 30 year old braking components on my 91 Z. I bought a set of rear calipers from rockauto, and while they look lovely, surprisingly new manufacture not reman, they don't have the parking brake bracket on them...

Bought:




Did I get, or order, the wrong calipers? Or is it normal to have to swap them over. My problem is, after looking at the hardware on the new calipers, I don't think there is enought thread length to install the bracket... Also, one of the parking brake arm bolts snapped on my old calipers, and I had to Jerry rig a solution, with a bolt, washers and one of those deformed end lock nuts...I'd prefer to go back to the proper factory configuration. Those locking washers on the new ones look like I wouldn't be able to remove them without destroying them...

I did try my best to search but couldn't find an answer.

What should I be doing here?

 

Swap the parts over, or buy calipers with the parking brake brackets. It's getting harder to find the PBR calipers at all, most of the time they're not going to include all the parking brake hardware.

 

You'll need to swap the parking brake parts over to the new calipers. The new calipers came with the parking brake lever assembly? The parking brake lever pivot is to short, not sure why GM would make this that short as there isn't any interference with other parts, probably something they pulled from an existing assembly, personally I would like to see a couple threads peaking out from the nut. The pivot pin will need to be torque down to 16-20 foot pounds, I held the other end with a pair of vise grips while torqueing the nut.

 

I found some with the brackets through Napa, these are actually pbr remans. Only problem now is the more available right side caliper is the correct thirdgen one, but the rare left side one is actually a fourth gen caliper with a third gen parking brake bracket. I'm sure it will work but it bothers me that they're not the same. The new ones don't have the cooling fins across the whole top, like the old third gen ones do... the guy at Napa noticed this and said he would order one more caliper to see of we get lucky and get a full cooling fan third gen caliper... we'll see. They're also painted black vs the Cardone new manufacture ones that are actually plated (silver)... which I think I prefer.


Proper third gen style from Napa

Fourth gen caliper with thirdgen parking brake bracket

Not sure which to go with for now, oppinions?

Im not seeing though, how to even remove the main parking brake bracket bolt, its has a nut on one side, but just some lock rings on the other side so it can spin freely. Do I have to grip the smooth part with a pliers and hit the nut with an impact. I see no marks on there now though, that would imply that was how it went together in the first place...


Comparison of finish and view of parking brake bracket bolt with lock washers on top.

You can see in this pic, that there just are not that many extra threads on the bolt where I would have to put the bracket on the silver one...

 

I held this side with the vise grips to torque the nut, 16-20 lbs isn't much and since the shape of this is only to hold the grease cap I felt ok with clamping the vise grips here.

 

It's a flange nut so it's going to be taller, you should be able to find a replacement through a local hardware store or even online, it's a M8-1.25 nut, I got a little fancy with a stainless steel acorn nut.

 

What was wrong with your original parts? Leaking sticking or just dirty?
Sometimes replacement of a working component creates more problems than its worth. Especially these days with inferior china (rebuild) parts popping up everywhere. Keep your stock parts and look for a pbr rebuild kit.

The 4thgen calipers had fins removed to help with wheel clearances. Same otherwise. (4th gen Mounting brackets are different though)

 

This is what I just used, everything seemed to go together pretty good
RAYBESTOS WK2178

 

I had some really weird wear patterns on my old rotors. Looking more closely at the caliper brackets, the surface where the pads are supposed to ride had deep grooves warn into them. Also one of my parking brake arm bolts had sheared, so I replaced it with whatever I could find.

Inside quarter inch of pad not making contact. Note rust ring.

The caliper brackets are more than half way to the price of the complete calipers... The new manufactured calipers are from China, the Napa remans are from Mexico, not sure if that's any better.

After 150k miles I just felt like it was time... Also, I had to find on the cooling fins in a few places to clear my old 15" wheels, so I liked the idea of replacing those...

Went a little crazy with my angle grinder...

Maybe I'm better off just getting new mounting brackets and reusing my existing calipers... but with my nice new C8 front Brembros, and bigger more open 17" wheels i would really like a clean fresh set of rear calipers...

 

yours look like mine. Mine have 250k miles on them. had to modify my calipers back in the early 90s so the 15" welds would fit with stock rotors. for track use.
13" baer rotors on all 4 corners now

 

So what's your vote then? Just get new mounting brackets, and continue using my old calipers?

 

I've had great luck with mine. It helps that the car sits in a garage but I do run the crap out of it.
I hit them with stainless wire brush now and then plus a little carb cleaner. Clean and lube the slides, use a 5 piece braided hose kit and enjoy. Imo

 

I guess that's the thing, I bought my car in 2001 with 114k mi, not sure how it was stored, it alredy had some rust. Then I daily drove it ALL YEAR round in the Chicago land area for for 10 years, that got me to the low 140k mi range. It was only about 5 years ago that I was able to start fully garaging it all year. It doesn't help that I also had an axle shaft seal leak on one side that I fixed about a year ago, the calipers are nasty. Maybe they do just need a good cleaning, but the look of those sparkly new cardone plated calipers is growing on me... just hope the quality is there...

I'm actually noticing in your pic that the nut only has about 80% thread engagement on the parking brake lever bolt. It's just strange that GM did that...

Also, I am not going to do it now, but i am intrigued by this 13" rear rotor conversion... got a link to more details? Looks like you only use the outer 3/4 of the friction surface on the rotor with the stock calipers right?

 

I got the rear conversion from Baer prob every bit of 15 yrs ago, it works with 17" wheels, not sure about any 16s They send the rear brackets for whatever rearend you are using, (big bearing ford in mine).
Obviously the rear pads are stock size and are moved farther out. Rotor still has to connect to the hat and this is just how they did it. All rotors are like this, it's just more noticeable with this drilled pattern and 2 piece rotor. The back of the rotor doesn't go much farther inward than the pad.

 

I'm still conflicted with the Chinese new manufacture vs Mexican PBR reman caliper choice, but I think I'm going to give the brand new ones a chance. The machining is actually much better, the castings are smoother, the ribs/fins are actually beefier, they're zinc plated, and they're cheaper to boot since I was sent them when I had ordered the uncoated plain PBR remans...

I put the first bracket on last night. I just want to confirm this is enough thread engagement with the nut. I found it interesting that I didn't even need to hold onto the other end of the pin/bolt to torque the nut to the specified 20 ft-lbs. Apparently it's installed with an interference fit, or it has teeth like wheel studs do. Also, I decided to / had to swap the one hex head caliper slide screw for the socket head screw off the old caliper, I dont think it would have been possible to get the hex head bolt back in with the parking brake bracket in place.

 

You're overthinking it. It's a parking brake bracket, not a structural part of the car.

 

You could use just a jam nut. They are thinner. Think that is what was used. Soak those brackets in rust remover, they'll come out clean.

 

Use a little lock tight for added insurance and torque it down, it should be fine

 

What do you think Red or Blue?

And yes... I'm an engineer, I over think EVERYTHING!!! LOL!

 

I thought about cleaning the brackets off, but I was feeling lazy and I don't think you can really even see them from the outside anyway. If I were to take them back off and clean them, is there a particular product, or a few of them, you'd suggest for removing rust? Locally available would be ideal... I was hoping to get the car down off it's jack stands tonight or tomorrow...

 

mines a project car, it’ll get done when it gets done. Everything that can fit in our sand blast cabinet has been sandblasted and zinc plated/powder coated/ painted.

 

Use this stuff all the time. Great product

 

I ended up using some naval jelly kind of stuff they had at local Home Depot, it worked ok to remove the rust...

it's all back together and buttoned up. Pretty happy so far. And I'm getting complete pad contact on the new rotors which is better than things were before!

I'm not thrilled about these cracks I found on my Hawk Pads though... I'll have to reach out to them and find out if it is a problem...