shaving down calipers

[jayamasaki79]

Anyone here have this done, or did it yourself ?

having clearance issues, wondering if on the front calipers :

A : Is it OK to completely cut off the braket (shown below inred)

B : if it is NOT safe, how much is OK to shave off of this bracket ?

thank you in advance.

[ahlem]

NOT SAFE.
Why are you considering doing this? If you are putting FWD wheels on you will need to rethink the offset. Wheel spacers may be the answer depending on your geometry.

[jayamasaki79]

NOT SAFE.
Why are you considering doing this? If you are putting FWD wheels on you will need to rethink the offset. Wheel spacers may be the answer depending on your geometry.

no they arent FWD wheels, they are just really wide.

I dont know the specs off hand, the width is 8.5, i dont know the off set. But the back of the rim hub hits that piece.

I was thinking of shaving the caliper bracket and then shaving down the rims a bit then runnin a spacer.

Can you explain why its not safe ? Im just curious why or what the issue is.

[Jordan]

There is a drastic difference between shaving down a bit, and outright removing a large portion of the structural bracket that holds the caliper to the spindle.

If we are talking about grinding down the metal to remove casting lines, or even to the extent of smoothing off the texture that isn't going to hurt anything, in fact I did just that with my own calipers because they were *just* contacting the rear faces of my wheels.



If you would have to remove more than 1mm of material to clear I would just leave the calipers alone and run spacers. If spacers will prevent the wheels from fitting then perhaps you should look at other wheels.

Now *that said* ATE design calipers don't have a rigid bridge in the bracket, rather they are coupled to the caliper body with a spring clip that reduces vibrations. The bracket itself isn't much different than the Girling one, although they implement different designs of guides both are probably very close in torsional load capability.



Now... if YOU want to cut the bridge off your Girling calipers to test the theory be my guest.... but I wouldn't recommend it.

[Northern]

I'd take a mm or two off maybe, more than that, no. It seems that it usually rubs on the two corners.

If you can get the wheel installed and it spins easily, but you can hear it dragging, I'd probably try. Any worse and it's not worth it.

[jayamasaki79]

I'd take a mm or two off maybe, more than that, no. It seems that it usually rubs on the two corners.

If you can get the wheel installed and it spins easily, but you can hear it dragging, I'd probably try. Any worse and it's not worth it.

I already test fitted them, the wheel is not spinning at all due to it hitting the caliper bracket.

[Northern]

I'd look into spacers at that point, at least get it free to move.

[jayamasaki79]

I think i'll shave my caliper braket down a smidge, then shave the back of the rim a smidge, and them run a spacer.
Running a spacer without doing so would have waaaaay toooo much wheel poke. Im not about that stretch life.

[stonea]

I'll really never understand the lengths some people go to fit wheels.