89 Brumby Brake Improvments

[Phizinza]

Henpecked pointed me in the direction of this thread. It seems I "star" in it a fair bit thanks to Steptoe.

I have a 87 L series caliper and caliper bracket. And as shown in the photos on page 4 in here by Silverbullet, the bracket bolt spacing is different. I see a lot of confusion in here saying first that you use the L series bracket on to the MY knuckle and then saying you use the MY bracket on the L series caliper. Neither of these methods work for, at least for the non-turbo ones. We really need someone to confirm whether or not the RX does indeed use the same spacing as the MY and not the L (which would be super weird).

The pistons look identical in size, so no gain there.

I have photos, but no point posting them as Silverbullet's photos show it already.

My findings on the rotor sizes is the 242mm L series rotor is mislabeled as fitting Brumby's, they don't.
The 230mm is the vented Brumby rotor, it uses the same calipers as the solid except the caliber bracket is slightly different (bolt spacings the same, just made to fit the wider rotor).
The 229mm rotor is the Brumby/Leone solid rotor.

Sorry for bringing this back up from the dead..

And has anyone else noticed RSR555 has said you can fit L series front brakes to MY knuckles on page 2, and now on page 4 he is saying you can't??

[steptoe]

Henpecked pointed me in the direction of this thread. It seems I "star" in it a fair bit thanks to Steptoe.

I have a 87 L series caliper and caliper bracket. And as shown in the photos on page 4 in here by Silverbullet, the bracket bolt spacing is different. I see a lot of confusion in here saying first that you use the L series bracket on to the MY knuckle and then saying you use the MY bracket on the L series caliper. Neither of these methods work for, at least for the non-turbo ones. We really need someone to confirm whether or not the RX does indeed use the same spacing as the MY and not the L (which would be super weird).

The pistons look identical in size, so no gain there.

I have photos, but no point posting them as Silverbullet's photos show it already.

My findings on the rotor sizes is the 242mm L series rotor is mislabeled as fitting Brumby's, they don't.
The 230mm is the vented Brumby rotor, it uses the same calipers as the solid except the caliber bracket is slightly different (bolt spacings the same, just made to fit the wider rotor).
The 229mm rotor is the Brumby/Leone solid rotor.

Sorry for bringing this back up from the dead..

And has anyone else noticed RSR555 has said you can fit L series front brakes to MY knuckles on page 2, and now on page 4 he is saying you can't??

Yes, that is where confusion and/or suspicion set in some years ago. Put it all down to Paul being tired (can see our US readers getting images of Paul being run over just about now ) and typing wrong thing through and not correcting it by time he is daisy fresh on p4, not even realising what he typed before . A lurker has actually posted up a pic of L fronts on an MY with mods to be able to seal front bearings inner against CV cone and maybe a few other mods - the angle differences of the components made no problem for his MY wagon. I think he and his father are master tinkerers and no idea how they got away with it. There are no part numbers for any front brake componets different from RX to others in the L stuff ! My L turbo auto has normal L front brakes. Even the bolts and slider pins differ beween MY and L.

We need a bored person with parts and time to try fit and then demonstrat the wicked angles resulting.....

[steptoe]

I can confirm that I have made the L.Series RX Turbo brake upgrade to many MY Series model cars over the years. The most recent one completed is Maple the beige coloured Brumby that was owned by Jay Jay. I shall refer this post to Maple as she had the complete RX Turbo conversion. There is no modification to any of the parts and there is no change to the alignment of the wheels as we are not touching the steering, nor the bearing hubs.

Parts required are...

Front end:
2x Front brake rotors (complete with drive hubs) and LH & RH Front brake calipers (complete with mounting brackets).

Rear end:
2x Rear brake rotors (complete with drive hubs), LH & RH Rear brake calipers (complete with mounting brackets), LH & RH Backing plates (including bolts & nuts) and LH & RH Brake flexible brake lines.


The fronts are a straight swap, just a case of removing the complete brake caliper (which includes the caliper mounting bracket) and remove the rotor, then fit the RX Turbo rotor and fit the RX Turbo caliper. The rears are little more interesting. You need to remove the drum and all the brake shoes, then remove the backing plate (at this point you can throw all these MY parts in the bin), then you'll need to fit the RX Turbo rear backing plates, then the rotors and calipers, then change out the brake lines and once all fitted up, you'll need to give the system a good bleed. I find a good time to replace your fluid.

I could go in to a lot more details/procedure about the swap but it's really a straight forward swap that you'll be able to work it out just by looking at the parts.

Can we see a photo of Maples front end please ?

[henpecked]

Henpecked pointed me in the direction of this thread. It seems I "star" in it a fair bit thanks to Steptoe.


My findings on the rotor sizes is the 242mm L series rotor is mislabeled as fitting Brumby's, they don't.
The 230mm is the vented Brumby rotor, it uses the same calipers as the solid except the caliber bracket is slightly different (bolt spacings the same, just made to fit the wider rotor).
The 229mm rotor is the Brumby/Leone solid rotor.

Sorry for bringing this back up from the dead..

MY Research on MY front rotors

confirming that the 242mm L series rotor is often mislabeled in Ebay as fitting Brumby's. I ordered from DBA through ebay and they rang me on my mobile to make sure I was ordering the correct part !!! I was asked the make year and model I was wanting to fit it on, I simply said that it was definitely the vented rotors I was replacing on a '89 Brumby and they were very happy top sent me the DBA640 pair.


2 x solid and 1 vented Rotors in MYs

Protex catalogue has
solid as DR342 for "Brumby A - 69" 78-89,
solid as DR340 "Leone 1600 & 1800 4WD" 80-84

vented as
"brumby AU" 85-93 AND "Leone 1600,1800" 84-85


solids

"thick" solid
DBA part DBA342 229mm
Protex DR342 229mm
thickness is 12.5mm, min thickness 10mm,

"thin" solid
Protex DR340 229mm
thickness is 10mm, min thickness 8.5,


vented
DBA part DBA640 230mm
Protex part DR640 230mm
Thickness is 18mm, min thickness 15.5

[mattw]

Reckon I am about 10 years behind the times on all this, but I'm now looking to do the rear disc conversion on my Brumby. I have everything I need except the most important item, the hubs....... 'good luck finding them' I hear you all saying!

[Bantum]

Jes Zek has done some great write ups on the conversion here :

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/top ... rake-swap/

http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/forum/top ... -solution/

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Bantum]

Also came across these :



From here : http://www.subaru4you.co.uk/brakes/brak ... gkit.shtml

Don't know if they would work or not, but may be a possible alternate solution in to making late model calliper's fit EA stuff ? ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[Bantum]

Was also looking at these as a possible upgrade :

, ,

Found here : http://www.xcceleration.com/itemdetails.cfm85.htm

You would need 17" wheels to clear the calliper /rotor & could possibly get the 'hat' to bolt up to back of L series hub + use the fitting kit above for the Caliper - dunno if it would work though.

Thoughts ?

Cheers, Bantum ...