305 front brake variants

[nametooshort]

My 305 has the Lucas/Girling style front calipers, which are single-piston slider calipers.

My car is a 87 GL 1.5 gasser which at some point in it's life has been converted to 1.8gld spec. I am not sure what they converted or didn't convert because I am unsure about the differences between the GL and GLD. For some reason I thought the gassers had a completely different front suspension (like, half-wishbones instead of full wishbones for example) and a different subframe and etc. I don't really know to be honest, but, whatever. Mine seems to have most components from a GLD.

What I can tell you for sure is that mine uses Girling single-piston slider calipers with 10mm solid (non-vented) rotors. They look like this (photo stolen from ebay)


I am forever having problems with them, they are just not very good. I thought re-manufactured calipers will fix it but they are still not great. New rotors, still not great. They are pretty weak for what is essentially a reasonably big car, especially when I got it loaded up with stuff and usually towing a small trailer, they eat brake pads (which are pretty small) and they always seem to make noise no matter what I do.

I love that car and clock up man miles on it, but the one thing that annoys me is the brakes.

The guy at the parts department of this place which knows a lot about French cars said that basically, those Girling front brakes are just not very good from the start, that I can keep messing with them all I want, but they are a bad design to begin with, since they are Girling after all, which is a brand belonging to the dreaded Prince Of Darkness/King Of Leaks company that should be thrown into the deepest hole you can find and replaced with the Bosch equivalent whenever encountered.

However, there doesn't seem to be a Bosch equivalent, but there appears to also be another system used in some PugCits of the same year which uses Bendix calipers and vented rotors. They seem to appear on some 405s 205s and 106s.

They seem to look like this:


The same old guy at the parts department suggested that if I find some vented rotors and some of these calipers, they should just bolt right on to my stock 305 hubs, but give it better braking performance.

Anybody care to comment about the validity of that statement? Is it just a case of buying 106 vented rotors, these calipers and brake pads for them, and I can just bolt all that stuff on and have Bendix brakes?

Or is it not that simple?

Also, do those calipers also have a bracket thing that's a separate part? You know, like, the other part of the caliper that a lot of calipers have, which is a big U-shaped cast component that bolts to the knuckle and surrounds the caliper? Or are these just stand-alone?

Thanks in advance!

[citronut]

firstly both the calipers you show are Bendix, as you can see the Bendix logo on the one you say is Girling,

in which case i think om correct in saying the caliper carrier is the same for both of those calipers,
thern you will need the lager/vented discs and pads to match,

be aware with the bigger calipers you might not get your existing wheel rims on,

have a play on this web site

http://www.ferodo.com/en-gb/Pages/eCata ... /Ferodo/pc#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

so were south UK are you sometimes

[nametooshort]

Ok, well this just shows that I am totally confused then, I have no idea whats going on lol. (this is not unusual).

So if the calipers I have ARE bendix then why did I always think they are Lucas/Girling? Did the Prince Of Darkness make licensed versions of Bendix calipers?

Anyways, my calipers have pads that look like this:



So, from what I gather, a large amount of Peugeots, Citroens and Renaults have interchangeable calipers? So, even tho they are different styles, and use different pads/hardware, they all bolts to the same hub/knuckle? And there are basically only vented and non-vented discs to choose from?

It seems there IS a Bosch variant, used in the Xsara Picasso on the front.

Does anybody know if there are any non-slider double-sided calipers (the type with two pistons and no slider pins) that are used in anything, that would fit this application?

[citronut]

i would suggest you either stick to your existing calipers and sort out the fault!!!??? ( flexi hose's collapsing ???? ),
or caliper slides binding,

the brake fitted from the factory should be adequate for the size and weight of the vehicle,

or go with the vented Bendix even though the solid or vented are both 266mm,

are your pads in the correct way around as those Bendix pads in your picy can be placed the wrong way which will cause braking issues