Topic: Hard to find calipers

We are working (ineptly) on an '82 Supra. We are on to the brakes but can't locate calipers for the right side. Plenty of left side calipers for some reason, no rights that we can find.
Can anyone help us here? Can we substitute from a different car? Does anyone have a different source for calipers?
Thank you! We are brand new to this and are trying to get this thing ready for a Midwest race this season.

Re: Hard to find calipers

Are you able to rebuild the old ones?

If you're comfortable going custom, I've adapted a lot of different calipers to cars over the years, its not too difficult to get right.  You can upgrade to bigger rotors/better calipers that way too.  Just find a caliper that is readily available and has lots of good pad options.  A lot of the later Toyota calipers were nice 4 piston type solid calipers.

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3 (edited by chaase 2022-06-17 08:19 AM)

Re: Hard to find calipers

Another option is to check to see if the  Cressida from that era will bolt up. You can get a full set of calipers and rotors from Rock Auto for the Cressida.

1992 Saturn SL2 (retired) - Elmo's Revenge -  Class B winner, Heroic Fix winner x2
1969 Rover P6B 3500S(sold) - Super G-Rover - I.O.E Winner, Class C Winner
1996 Saturn SW2 - Elmo's Revenge (reborn!), Saturn SL1  Dazzleshipm Class C x2 and IOE winner
1974 AMC Javelin - Oscar's Trash heap - IOE,”Organizer's Choice" and "I got Screwed" award winner

Re: Hard to find calipers

+1 to rebuilding to old ones.  Not hard at all.

5 (edited by chaase 2022-06-17 08:26 AM)

Re: Hard to find calipers

EDIT: nevermind

1992 Saturn SL2 (retired) - Elmo's Revenge -  Class B winner, Heroic Fix winner x2
1969 Rover P6B 3500S(sold) - Super G-Rover - I.O.E Winner, Class C Winner
1996 Saturn SW2 - Elmo's Revenge (reborn!), Saturn SL1  Dazzleshipm Class C x2 and IOE winner
1974 AMC Javelin - Oscar's Trash heap - IOE,”Organizer's Choice" and "I got Screwed" award winner

Re: Hard to find calipers

That is the saddest rockauto parts catalog I've ever seen lol.

Luckily brakes are a pretty easy thing to mix and match, retrofit, etc. They're so simple. I'd bring a caliper+bracket that you currently have and go to a junkyard. Hopefully they can mark it for you or something, the one near here won't believe you if you are trying to leave with a part that you brought from home. You may also be able to dig through inventory at an auto parts store... depending on the store I've had a parts guy let me dig through their caliper inventory. Find the closest match you can find, ideally from a car that's popular. There has to be something out there that is close enough to fit after grinding, welding, oversizing a clearance hole, spacing with washers, or drilling/tapping another hole. A simple OE style sliding caliper is pretty forgiving as long as it kinda fits, kinda slides, and the piston and fingers squeeze the brake pad kinda near the center of the pad. You'll probably see pad taper, but so do most sliding calipers while racing.

You may also be able to piece together a BBK from stoptech, wilwood, etc... they're budget exempt but that means less budget for beer.

Full Ass Racing
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Re: Hard to find calipers

Does the left caliper have basic clearance to physically fit the right mount?

I have a truck where _all_ calipers are the same: F & R, L & R.

In an emergency, someone here posted they used an extra (fill in the side) caliper because it mounted with plenty of clearance. The only difference was where the bleeder valve is located.

To bleed the caliper, they inserted a piece of wood between the pads, without mounting it; they were able to rotate the caliper due to the flexible hose to hold the bleeder on top.

Then they mounted the caliper.

Brilliant solution from my perspective.

Re: Hard to find calipers

rebuild...if not
https://www.vividracing.com/-p-153965393.html 
https://www.globalindustrial.com/p/cent … ing_clicks

Re: Hard to find calipers

Lemon_Newton-Metre wrote:

Does the left caliper have basic clearance to physically fit the right mount?

I have a truck where _all_ calipers are the same: F & R, L & R.

In an emergency, someone here posted they used an extra (fill in the side) caliper because it mounted with plenty of clearance. The only difference was where the bleeder valve is located.

To bleed the caliper, they inserted a piece of wood between the pads, without mounting it; they were able to rotate the caliper due to the flexible hose to hold the bleeder on top.

Then they mounted the caliper.

Brilliant solution from my perspective.

We have done this with the Explorer calipers on the rear of our 1947 Plymouth.  At one race...all calipers regardless of what the box said at two different stores were lefts.  We needed a right.  Stuck a piece of 1/2" OSB between the pads, held it upside down and bled it.  Now any time the calipers are identical except for which hole has a bleeder and shich has a plug, we travel with one spare.

Re: Hard to find calipers

The Supra and Celica seem to be different on Rock Auto. The Celica has parts available but the Supra doesn't. Are they actually the sane?

1992 Saturn SL2 (retired) - Elmo's Revenge -  Class B winner, Heroic Fix winner x2
1969 Rover P6B 3500S(sold) - Super G-Rover - I.O.E Winner, Class C Winner
1996 Saturn SW2 - Elmo's Revenge (reborn!), Saturn SL1  Dazzleshipm Class C x2 and IOE winner
1974 AMC Javelin - Oscar's Trash heap - IOE,”Organizer's Choice" and "I got Screwed" award winner

Re: Hard to find calipers

Just spend for an upgrade set. You'll wish you did later after spending almost as much money to fin a Concours correct Historical artifact to discover it's an early 80's braking system.

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Re: Hard to find calipers

I have been following all the comments. Thank you all for weighing in.
We will check to see if the Celica or Cressida from that era are compatible.
We will also investigate rebuilding. We got a guy on our team that has done some brake work, will see if he is comfortable flopping the calipers and making them fit.
A question on the upgrade comments. Is there a specific brake set you would recommend checking our first for an '82 Supra? One gentleman mentioned later Toyota 4 piston type calipers. Are there specific models you would check out first?
Thank you!

Re: Hard to find calipers

If you're upgrading brakes on a Lemons budget (outside of actual Lemons budget, but beer and gas cost money too..), I'd start with finding a caliper that is readily available in junkyards that mounts to a rotor that will fit under the wheels you want to run.  Obviously, the bigger the better here for rotor size.  If it has a rotor that fits your lug pattern, extra bonus, but not required.  Redrilling rotors is easy with a drill press and printed paper template. 

Then go to Porterfield's website and confirm you can find some good race pads for them (HAWK DTC 30/40/50/etc or Raybestos ST43):

https://porterfield-brakes.com/

Once you've settled on a caliper/rotor, figure out how to bolt it on.  Remember to keep the bleed port UP.  There are lots of options to making a caliper work, anyone with some fab experience should be able to work something out.

Once they're bolted on, look at hydraulic ratios.  Calculate what your stock setup is first for a baseline.  Since I'm guessing you still have rear drums, we'll just concentrate on the fronts for now.  You want to look at the master cylinder bore AREA with respect to the front caliper bore AREA. If its a single piston, one sided floating caliper, you just calculate the area of that single piston (or the area of 2 pistons if its a 2 piston).  If its a 2 or 4 piston solid mounted caliper where the piston forces are opposing one another, you actually only calculate HALF of the total piston area (a 4 piston brembo/wilwood caliper is calculated as the area of 2 of it's pistons).

After you have the factory ratio, you can get an idea of how to size your master cylinder for your new calipers.  Generally I've found that when you're upgrading calipers, you're adding lots of caliper piston surface area and making your hydraulic ratio MUCH stronger.  This can work out great if you had power brakes, just remove the vacuum booster and run non-boosted brakes like a REAL RACE CAR.

Petrosexual Racing - 4.9 HT swap/Trashback Miata
https://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/view … p?id=35746
BFE GP '18 - 1st in C, High Plains Drifter -19 - 1st in B/Overall
Uh oh, Spaghettios...