My 67 has Kelsey Hays 4 piston disk brakes. I have discovered the pads are not wearing evenly; one pad little wear, other side tapered along the long dimension. This condition strikes me as only one of the four pistons is moving.

Could any of you recommend a caliper rebuild kit, or should I purchase a rebuilt unit?

There are no leaks from any of the cylinders. I guess what I asking; is the rebuild process generally successful, or is this a waste of money?

When purchasing a new rotor (hub & rotor are one unit), do they come with wheel studs installed.

Bill

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

The hub is held on by the wheels studs , they are not one piece . They are available on Ebay for $35-40 .

I got rebuilt calipers from napa auto for $65.00 each (with my core) .

Are these the fixed caliper or are they a floating caliper?

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50 chrysler,54 Plymouth, 64 Valiant conv 4 speed, 66 Valiant V8 wagon, 70 Challenger R/T 440+6 conv 4 speed,80 Colt, 98 Neon ACR,84 Honda V45 Magna
Taking care of 57 300C conv,48 T&C conv. Missing my 67 GTX and 36 Ply coupe

4speed: Fixed

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

Sound like the ones on my 66 New Yorker. I thought that they were made by Bud. They never wear even. They can't wear even. They are why we use a floating caliper now. A four piston fixed caliper sounds sexy but they do not wear even. Same ones used by Chevy in the Corvette. You can rebuild them and get them better but they will always wear poorly.

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50 chrysler,54 Plymouth, 64 Valiant conv 4 speed, 66 Valiant V8 wagon, 70 Challenger R/T 440+6 conv 4 speed,80 Colt, 98 Neon ACR,84 Honda V45 Magna
Taking care of 57 300C conv,48 T&C conv. Missing my 67 GTX and 36 Ply coupe

4-piston calipers will normally wear the pad a bit tapered. Newer 4-piston calipers have different size pistons on the leading and trailing edges to reduce this. If you're getting significant differences in wear then you probably have sticking pistons. The last time I rebuilt a pair of K-H calipers I ended up buying 5 pistons to replace the pitted ones. If you can get rebuilt calipers for a decent price I'd do that.

Single pistons calipers exist because they are cheaper not because they are superior.

Budd did make disc brakes for the large cars. Intermediates got Bendix. Don't ask me why.

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Joshua

I did not mean to imply that a single floating was superior, just better at wear patterns. With four fixed pistons one will move easier that others and one harder than others no matter what you do and cause a bad wear pattern.

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50 chrysler,54 Plymouth, 64 Valiant conv 4 speed, 66 Valiant V8 wagon, 70 Challenger R/T 440+6 conv 4 speed,80 Colt, 98 Neon ACR,84 Honda V45 Magna
Taking care of 57 300C conv,48 T&C conv. Missing my 67 GTX and 36 Ply coupe

With all my 4 piston calipers (truck and motorcycle), I've found that the inside pad seems to wear faster than the outside.

Plus they all seem to wear with a taper. (forget if the leading edge or trailing edge wears more, but they all do it the same way).

I've started to switch the inside and outside pads (flipping them over at the same time) to equalize wear on the truck (can't do it on the motorcycle as the 2 pads are aren't interchangeable)

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

On reexamination of both caliper and rotor; the outside surface of rotor shows limited to no contact with corresponding pad, which also shows no wear. The inner surface of rotor exhibits normal wear patterns, shiny fresh metal, and its corresponding pad is 2/3 worn on one end, and half used on the opposite end. Clearly the inner pad on driver’s side is doing all the stopping, and the outer pad is not contributing.

Probably this malfunction has contributed to this car’s lackluster braking performance that until now had been chocked up to 1967 braking performance norms. Oddly the car dose not pull in either direction under hard or light braking.

When I purchased the car, the pads looked to have been recently installed, and there were signs that at some point in recent history the front brakes had seized to the rotor, as rivet impressions could be seen, and are still visible on the outer rotor surface after 9000 miles of driving.

I have yet to pull passenger’s side caliper for inspection since a year or so ago. Where no pulling is present, I bet that the same malady is effecting this side as well.

In the past I have not had good luck rebuilding master cylinders & brake cylinders, and suspect rebuilding this set of calipers will be money down a rat hole. Most likely I shall follow Josh’s advice and just purchase a pair of rebuilt calipers.

Josh do you recommend applying never-seize to the two bolts holding the calipers to the steering knuckle, if so; copper stuff, or aluminum colored?

Bill

Show & Tell:
Outer surface, block sanded to brake rust build-up at outer edge to mic thickness of rotor. Much shinier than before sanding:
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm87/wjajr/Dart%20Brakes/100_1358.jpg[/img]

Inner surface, nice normal wear pattern:
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm87/wjajr/Dart%20Brakes/100_1357.jpg[/img]

Caliper with ¾â€￾ EMT conduit keeping pads retracted. Tapered inner pad in fore ground:
[img]http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm87/wjajr/Dart%20Brakes/100_1359.jpg[/img]

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

On steel-to-steel fasteners I only use anti-seize if there is something like high temperatures which will lock the parts together. I would use blue Lock-tite which will help keep the calipers on the car and keep corrosion out to make disassembly easier than if rusted together.

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Joshua

In shopping for calipers, prices range from Centric’s at 49 bucks to Napa’s Eclipse brand at 180 bucks without pads & before core charges. These are all rebuilt units, so how dose one make a choice with a spread like this?

Any preferred brands: Raybestos; Centris; A-1 Cardone; Bendix; Eclipse; Napa’s preferred; and who knows what others I will find from local venders…???

When part listing states: “With Installation Hardwareâ€￾, what does this include?

This is becoming more confusing than purchasing toilet paper and or tires.
Bill

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

I rebuilt my own, and it cost a lot, once I finished getting 8 pistons and 2 sets of seals, and even a set of stainless cross-over tubes. The part that's hard to find for these are the caliper-to-knuckle bolts. The ones for Mustangs are different thread.

Slantfin, I’m all set on bolts, mine are fine.

As I said before, home rebuilds in the past have not been too successful, so I decided to go with Raybestos. I had a conversation with Rock Auto, and the guy said that a lot of the difference in price is two fold, core is worth more to some companies than others, and length of warrantee.

Raybestos is two years, A1-Cardone lifetime, Centric 90 days. Raybestos pays 56 bucks per core, Cardone pays 30 bucks. I’m looking at this as a used car trade-in deal. Sometimes your Iron is worth more at one store than another…

That’s my story and I’m sticking with it. LOL

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC