I've known my front calipers for the '74 had stainless sleeves in them since I've had the car. Never been an issue...until NOW, just a couple of weeks from the Gathering.
The pass side front was leaking, so I figured what the heck, I'll just pull it off and rebuild it...again. I built these calipers once before, back in '99. The car has been driven to WV and back once, Pigeon Forge, Hot Springs, and a few other longish trips since then. Anywho...I got the caliper off today, had my new seal kits I got from our pal Larry at CS, and started the job. Got everything cleaned up, seals intalled ont eh pistons, etc. Had a little trouble getting one of the pistons to go all the way down into the cylinder. I kept thinking the spring was getting off-centered, but I finally determined the issue was not with the spring, or the piston. Further examination found that the dadgum sleeves were OFF-CENTERED in the caliper halves!
Whomever did these caliper bored the holes off centered, which leave a small ledge at the bottom of the bore....which the piston catches....
Now I know why the dam thing has been leaking. I checked the other bores on the same caliper, and they are ALL off-centered, but none as bad as the one that was actually leaking.
I have no clue where these calipers came from, since they were already on the car...I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest they prolly came from a (local)parts house. What really gigs me is, I'm always warning folks about this very issue....
Don't know why/how these have managed to work for so long, but they have. Imma guessing if I drove the car more, the problem would have shown up sooner. So now what? Do I buy new calipers and be done with it, or rebuild this one, since it HAS worked for years like this?
I decided to go ahead and rebuild/re-use. I'll get the brake bled tomorrow eve, and see how it works. I've also got to get the car inspected(State Safety Inspect), so that'll give me some miles to put on it to see if the dang thing is gonna leak again or not.
Why the heck didn't I start this maintenance before now? Because I'm frikkin lazy. I've had the car up on jack-stands for two months now, and I keep tellin meself I'm gonna get started on it every evenin...and that's as far as it goes.
Soooo..how was YOUR day?
F-d up caliper
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Joel Adams
C3VR Lifetime Member #56
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"Money can't buy happiness -- but somehow it's more comforting to cry in a CORVETTE than in a Kia"