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Tale of Woe - Brickboard saves the day! 200

posted by  gibbsjj on  Thu Apr 27 07:12 CST 2006
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last visit: Wed Oct 14 12:51 CST 2009
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The story begins with a front caliper that sticks on my '83 245. New calipers and rotors are needed up front, and I decide to replace the old brake hoses as they look pretty suspicious.

Rebuilt calipers are obtained from a local parts place - the rebuilder was 'New Gen'. After a little bathing in brake fluid and fighting old fittings that the PO had vice-gripped, the new parts were in place. Out comes the power bleeder to finish up the job in time to have a pint with some friends.

Round 1 of bleeding - got some nice bubbles out, looking good. Hmmm, no pedal.
Round 2 of bleeding - no bubbles, just lots of fluid. Still no pedal.
Round 3 - same. Back to the store for another quart of fluid.
Round 4 - same issue. No pedal.

OK, what is going on here? Talk to a friend, and he suggests tapping on the calipers with a mallet while bleeding - claims that bubbles can stick to the fresh bore. Try that for 2 more rounds, STILL no pedal!

Back to the store for another quart.

I take a real close look at all the lines / hoses to make sure there are no leaks - none are found. I try another round of bleeding, this time with only 5-10 PSI on the bleeder. No luck. Then I try another round and have my wife pump the brakes while I am bleeding. No dice.

Huh, bad master cyl I guess. Off to the parts place to get one... and a gallon of brake fluid.

Fit the new MC, bleed again... STILL NO PEDAL!

That night I start searching the Brickboard archive - reading others tales of brake bleeding induced pain and suffering. I come across several accounts of people getting calipers that have been incorrectly assembled by the rebuilder - the inner halves being installed on the wrong side and upside down. Now, there is NO WAY to tell this by looking at the caliper... and fluid comes out each of the bleeders as it should.

Next day I pull the calipers and test them. Sure enough, they are assembled incorrectly! I take them back to the parts place to exchange for some new ones (from a different rebuilder). The guys at the parts place have never seen this problem before, and did not know it was even possible!

I don't think I would have EVER figured this out without this board - so a big thank you to Brickboard!

Here is a link to a very helpful thread on this issue:

http://www.brickboard.com/RWD/index.htm?id=1039732

-Josh '83 245







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    Mismatched Front caliper halves (look at the dimples) 200

    uid 18083's pic
    posted by  lucid on  Thu Apr 27 07:51 CST 2006
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    last visit: Fri Oct 24 12:31 CST 2014
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    "Now, there is NO WAY to tell this by looking at the caliper..."

    Actually, there is a way to tell — the mismatched outer half will have a punch-marked "dimple" at the TOP, near the parting line.
    If not mismatched, the dimple would be at the BOTTOM.)

    You may have missed an earlier post on this, where I pointed out the significance of these dimples, which will be on the bottom of correctly matched caliper halves.

    Here is a link to a detailed explanation. Sorry it's so long, but I could find no short cut to explain the internals.
    --
    Bruce Young
    '93 940-NA (current), 240s (one V8), 140s, 122s, since '63.








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      Mismatched Front caliper halves (look at the dimples) 200

      posted by  gibbsjj on  Thu Apr 27 09:27 CST 2006
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      last visit: Wed Oct 14 12:51 CST 2009
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      Sorry, no I did read your excellent posts in the archives on this issue. On the calipers that I had, you could not see the punch marks. You could sort of tell on one that there might have been a punch mark, but on the other... nothing. My guess is the original punch marks were not very deep, and the process of blasting/painting (possibly multiple times) had removed every trace of the marks.

      In the future I will look for the marks first, but if the marks are not visible then I bust out the hose and test them.

      Thanks.

      -Josh







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