Caliper upgrade

Mick Cliff · Post by **Mick Cliff** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 7:28 pm

Thanks Barry, useful information

I'll try a few more miles to bed in the pads (weather permitting) and then impose on the Northern guys to give me a hand (well, leg and foot!) to finish off the bleed.
A granite pedal sounds good.

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 8:08 pm

I"m changing my 3.2 front calipers to Boxter front calipers soon - picking them up early Fed - so I'll have a pair of 3.2 from capilers for sale shortly after that (depending on how long it takes me to do an extra rigid pipe and fit them)

jtparr · Post by **jtparr** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 9:11 pm

mick

second the advice from Barry about the flexing piston bit, barry helped me do the brakes on mine and we had exactly the same symptoms

just keep using the brakes a lot when you drive around for a while, I'm sure it/they will eventually bed in properly

Jp

gridgway · Post by **gridgway** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:11 pm

It was a long time ago, but how did the boxster brakes pan out Mick. Did you get a granite pedal?

Graham

Mick Cliff · Post by **Mick Cliff** » Tue Jun 15, 2010 7:33 am

The Boxster calipers are great Graham. Took a good few miles to bed in though and I ended up with a good solid pedal, not granite but pretty close. First time I had to use them in anger (on a Northern run) the car stopped pretty damn quickly. 58A-71E was relieved

Mintex pads produce a lot of dust.

911hillclimber · Post by **911hillclimber** » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:24 pm

Any chance of a few pics and a complete run-down of your parts used?

I understand the front calipers to use are 2.5 front Boxster (basic boxster brakes), but what rears and master?

Graham Struggling to Stop

sladey · Post by **sladey** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 7:19 am

I've only done the fronts on my 3.2 - pleased with the results

I needed:-

- the boxster calipers (from a 2.5 as you say)
- converter brackets (you can get these from a number of places - they are £100-£150 though for 2 blocks of ally!)
- a couple of custom-made copper pipes

Do a search on impact bumpers for boxster brakes - there are a couple of threads with pics

Mick Cliff · Post by **Mick Cliff** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 7:37 am

I'm sure there's pictures of my conversion on here somewhere - but I can't find them at the moment. I'll keep looking...
Here's a few photos from my files...

Conversion is very straightforward. I used a set (4) of used calipers (early 2.5 Boxster - 2.5S are too big and won't fit under 15" Fuchs) from Porschapart - http://www.porsch-apart.co.uk/ - , a conversion kit from TRE - http://www.tremotorsports.com/product.cfm?Node=10317 - new front discs from Berlyn - http://www.partsforporsche.co.uk/ and a set of standard Mintex road pads.
Had to discard the backing plates to all 4 brakes. Left master cylinder 'as-is'. Only problem I had was bleeding the brakes - with the TRE set-up the rear calipers end up almost horizontal at the top of the disc. Overcame this by loosening the rear calipers and rotating them temporarily to get the bleed nipples at the highest point. You'll have to juggle with the side to side bridging pipe on each caliper and the positons of the bleed nipples to get them all oriented correctly - easier to do than describe

I'm sure there are cheaper conversion kits than the TRE now.
After bedding in the brakes and re-bleeding several times can only say the brakes are awesome - maybe over-braked for a (light) early car.

911hillclimber · Post by **911hillclimber** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 5:58 pm

Brilliant!
Thought those rears woulb be a prob for bleeding, but no real problem.
I like the look of this lot as it all looks in period, not big Red Brakes etc.

Thank you very much,
Graham.

gridgway · Post by **gridgway** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 7:12 pm

On mine, I have the boxster calipers front and rear. I find the pedal goes too far and is not definite enough - too low a ratio. I am planning to change to a 23mm m/c from the 19mm one.

Graham

gridgway · Post by **gridgway** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 7:21 pm

Are the discs from a 3.2?

Graham

Mick Cliff · Post by **Mick Cliff** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 11:24 pm

gridgway wrote:Are the discs from a 3.2?

Graham

From the TRE Motorsports site (noted above)....

Brake discs recommended: 1984-89 front 911 Carrera. 1970-83 911 Rear - Option: You can use the 1984-89 Carrera rear discs if you modify the shiny locating pins slightly on each rear caliper. By removing some material off the end or each pin, you can easily fit the thicker discs from the 84-89 model

I changed the front discs only on my '72 car

Mick Cliff · Post by **Mick Cliff** » Tue Jul 20, 2010 11:36 pm

911hillclimber wrote:....I like the look of this lot as it all looks in period, not big Red Brakes etc.

Colour to choice after cleaning the calipers. I had some 'Porsche' brake stickers but never got round to fitting them.

One thing to note - I intended to re-rubber/seal the calipers before fitting but, try as I might I could not locate any piston/caliper seal kits. All I could get were the outer dust seals, which I did install. I actually removed all of the brake pistons and lubricated the piston seals with rubber grease and brake fluid. Perhaps a bit OTT but I wanted to be sure the pistons were not binding in the calipers

Nick Moss · Post by **Nick Moss** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 7:53 am

try as I might I could not locate any piston/caliper seal kits

Did you try your OPC? They are listed as available on PET

Mick Cliff · Post by **Mick Cliff** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 8:25 am

nick-moss wrote:Did you try your OPC? They are listed as available on PET

Nope

My old PET didn't show them
Don't know why I didn't try harder with the OPC. I seem to have an aversion to OPC's, maybe because years ago they were very expensive and not very helpful when searching for parts for the various 'old bangers' I've had over the years.