Replacement calipers

[marcva]

Patient is my 1997 E36m. 170k mi...

Hey guys. It's been a while. Work and a new to me house have had me busy. So busy, in fact, that I never properly seated a caliper boot I replaced, and now the piston is seizing. They're stainless pistons so I may be able to clean them up, but I figure it's easier to swap them and clean them up for the next swap in a few years.

I remember Chris recommending a brand he uses, but forgot the name. Anything have gotten brands for replacement calipers?

Thanks. I'll try to stick around and help with the easy stuff...

Marc

[WadiM3]

Hey Marc long time ??

Paying very close attention to the input from Chris and the other amazing friends and techs, I believe I noted down somewhere that he recommended WBR Rebuilt Calipers to Shadowpuck and he also said somewhere else that if you could find a BMW shop that orders from Worldpac you could get Calipers with M lettering for $60 or $100 I'm not too sure on that! Milking these forums and absorbing the input pays off!!

[bmwdirtracer]

Hi Marc,

Yes, WBR are the calipers you want to order, and WorldPac is the supplier. Try to get a local shop to order them for you, or try Advance Auto....I think they are the ones who now own WorldPac.

You do NOT want Cardone, they are crap. Don't forget new hoses....or maybe it's time for a set of stainless lines?

[MarcoZandrini]

Autozone owns World PAC? Yikes!

[dworthy]

+1 on the hoses, as for 10 years or more of use tends to wear them out. I had to replace the wagon's about 2 years ago, as they start to crack, and when I got the winter car they were original. I had to use heat on the winter car to get them loose from the hardlines and two of them blew apart while heating and I even had the bleeder valves open!

[shadowpuck]

i had a local shop order mine for me - worked out well. the calipers i received were BMW marked calipers (this is on a non-m so can't speak to that).

i now do soft line replacements every 3 years or so on the track car. i had one fail on track (SS line) - it was very entertaining!

[WadiM3]

Out of curiosity how do stainless steel lines fail?

[shadowpuck]

heat weakens the connection point from the stainless hose to the metal clamp that leads into the caliper. over time, the heat and stress placed on this joint eventually causes it to fail. it's highly entertaining on track, and i do not recommend the experience to anyone. lesson learned, change the soft lines on a regular basis (race teams change them as often as two-three times in a season). i also now run SS lines on the track that have heat shields protecting that joint.

on a street car, i much prefer the stock lines - on track, i prefer the SS lines with the caveat that they are changed on a regular basis (I settled on 3 years, but everyone should come to their own conclusions). i now ask my students how old their brake lines are as part of my initial discussion.

[WadiM3]

Thanks for the reply Gregg

[Jason5driver]

Wow!
Awesome info!
Thank you!

[bmwdirtracer]

Note that I said ADVANCE AUTO OWNS WORLD PAC, not Autozone.

It's always been my experience with stainless line failure that the TOP crimp area failed, and I've always attributed that to a kink, however brief, caused by hanging the caliper, or having it fall off whatever device is holding it while doing work. I've taken to using a strong coiled spring, or sometimes even a very stiff, stronghose, over that top joint, to help protect it against overflexing.

I'll definitely watch out for the failures at the opposite ends, now, too...thanks shadowpuck!

[shadowpuck]

chris, you are exactly right. i talked to some folks that know, and they described the usual damage like you describe. in my case, apparently, i was good and diligent about not hanging or kinking the hose, but i left the hoses on the car too long and one finally gave up due to heat/vibration/stress, etc. that's what is tricky about SS lines - it's very difficult to tell when one is worn out or failing. i had been carefully checking my car prior to every event (and after each event too) and had been specifically checking the hoses for any weakness, etc.

i got off easy - the failure occurred with hardly any cars on track and with nothing to hit and it didn't occur on the street or highway. found a spare line in the paddock, installed, bled the corner - good to go.
afterward, i replaced all four calipers and soft lines.

so, now i just replace them based on age/use - cheap insurance and takes minutes.
for a street car - all of this is overkill (if you are generating the amount of heat and stress in street braking that we do on track, then you have much bigger issues to resolve) and i just run stock lines.

[marcva]

I broke down and just rebuilt it. The boot was ok but not seated properly. It took a couple tries to get the piston seated properly, but it just cost a couple wasted hours and some fluid. It was a stainless piston from bimmerworld and it was in good shape.

Did the lines last year when I still had a decent garage, so they're ok.

Not sure I want to mess with that again, though I got much better at it doing it three times in one night. I'm not as good as I once was...

Lots of wasted time allowing time to do things right.