A handy hint - maybe?

adzbaby · Post by **adzbaby** » 11 Jul 2005, 18:12

I had to replace the brake discs all round on a 95 1.9TD Xantia at the w/e.
Fronts were nice and easier to do.
Started on the rears and discovered what some may have experienced I am sure, that after putting the new discs on I couldn't get the caliper to mate with the face on the rear arm and line up nicely with the disc! The face that was bolted to the arm had corroded badly and left about a 2mm layer of the alloy attached to the arm (on both rears). I thought bugger, need another caliper (I have a few spare in the shed [;)]) but then looked at the caliper and after close inspection, (the opposite side had a lovely smooth face) I realised that the two halves were identical, as far as my eyes could tell me, and I thought ah ha I'll swap the bleed nipple over with the inlet for the H/pipe and bolt it on.
Well all is well, the brakes work fine (MOT'd this morning Hurrah) so the swap was successful. I hope the halves are identical (if someone knows otherwise please tell me [;)]), if they are its a handy way of getting round a troublesome caliper!
Cheers Adam.

dnsey · Post by **dnsey** » 11 Jul 2005, 18:26

Well spotted!
Yes, I think they're identical - I've done this before on a BX will no ill effects

AndersDK · Post by **AndersDK** » 11 Jul 2005, 21:23

No worries they are exactly symmetrical externally.
Only difference is internal :
One half has a groove - the other has not - for the rubber seal which seals off the pressure bore from one to another on the mating faces.
But this has nothing to do with the brakes function [;)]

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 11 Jul 2005, 21:34

The left and right calipers are in fact identical, so they can be swapped side to side.

citronut · Post by **citronut** » 13 Jul 2005, 00:38

could you not just clean the surface so it was flat and put some grease on it to stop it coroding again regards malcolm

adzbaby · Post by **adzbaby** » 13 Jul 2005, 17:53

Well you could but I don't think its worth the hassle of re-working the face ( especially after a non uniform 2mm+ layer has fallen off)when you can just swap the nipple with the pipe inlet.

Stempy · Post by **Stempy** » 14 Jul 2005, 00:10

Wish I had thought of that, I just cleaned mine up and copperslipped the pitted surface, seemed to work just fine though, and I'm not going to dismantle them again now. This is one for the tips section.

AndersDK · Post by **AndersDK** » 14 Jul 2005, 00:47

Remember to reverse the insertion direction of the long small bolt holding the pads - or you will have to remove the caliper again for later pads service. The bolt must go in from outside - and the nut fitted on the inside - of the caliper [8D]

citronut · Post by **citronut** » 14 Jul 2005, 12:54

swaping them around is a good idea as long as pipe nuts and nips are not seazed regards malcolm

adzbaby · Post by **adzbaby** » 14 Jul 2005, 15:58

Yeah Anders you have to swap that too, you just have to reverse the removables (as long as they are removable as Malcolm states!)