[T3] Brake Calipers

[Adriel Rowley]

----------------------------------------
> From: jadney at vwtype3.org
> To: type3 at vwtype3.org
> Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2011 07:51:44 -0500
> Subject: Re: [T3] Brake Calipers
>
> On 9 Aug 2011 at 22:18, Adriel Rowley wrote:
>
> > > From: jadney at vwtype3.org
>
> > > All late calipers came with 2 bleeders.
> > >
> > > Early calipers came with 1 bleeder, but later replacements for the
> > > early calipers came with 2.
> > >
> > Then why did Russ say lates came at first with single bleeders, seen
> > others mentioned, and I have an example of one?
>
> I don't know why, or even if, Russ ever said such a thing. The VW
> microfilm shows 4 bleeder valves per car for all cars with the late
> calipers and that's all I've ever heard of or seen. You may be mixing
> up descriptions of early and late calipers, since the LATE
> replacements for EARLY calipers came with 2 bleed valves. Those LATE
> replacements should be avoided, because they were usually made with
> 40 mm pistons, which were correct for Type 1 Ghias, not the 42 mm
> pistons that are correct for all Type 3s and Type 4s.
>
He said it on theSamba, so should be on there somewhere.

I do know about early calipers, thus the reason I changed to late 
calipers.  Not sure I do this again though.

Adney, how much would it cost for a rebuild with caliper cores without 
the plates?  How much would the plates cost by themselves?  Starting to 
regret going the big business route and thinking I should not send my 
cores out.

> ATe made calipers for many automakers and in a given era they used
> the same castings but machined them differently. I have calipers here
> that look like early VW calipers, but they have 38 mm, 39 mm, and 40
> mm pistons. Only the 40s were used by VW, on the Type 1 Ghias. If
> you've seen a caliper that looked like a late Type 3 caliper but that
> had just one bleeder valve, my guess is that it was made for an
> automaker other than VW.
>
Mind showing how you got the loss of 10 percent calculation for 40mm

pistons?  I am curious of what affect 38mm, 39mm, 50mm have.

> I'm not familiar with all the other automaker versions, but ATe
> supplied that style of 2-piston fixed caliper as fronts and rears to
> Porsche, Volvo, Saab, Mercedes, BMW and possibly more. I usually
> can't tell what size piston is inside until I take the caliper apart.
>
The two calipers look to have the same size pistons.  Why could one not
measure with a caliper the diameter?  Not accurate?

Here is what I got back from Rock Auto:
> Thanks for your email. I do show that the FRC3079 has one bleeder and  
> the FRC3080 has two. Here are the images we have from Raybestos: 
>  
> FRC3079: http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=522216 
> FRC3080: http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=522919 
>  
> Did your mechanic assume that both have single bleeders, or did he  
> actually check the calipers? We also show that Cardone lists the right  
> side caliper with a single bleeder and the left-hand caliper with  
> double bleeders. 

The mechanic I am referring to is this List. ;)  I did send a letter 
back as stated in response to Mr. Hall's letter.  Shall be interesting
what they come back with.


Thank you,
Adriel