Rear caliper rebuild - any tips?

[MattNoVAT]

Has anyone out there ever replaced the seals or overhauled a set of rear calipers from a Beta before?

I've never had to do a set of rears before so  just looking for any tips/advice.

Any help would be much appreciated.

My rear drivers side has started weeping - so I will replace seals on both rears while I'm doing there as theres no point doing one on its own.

[lanciamad]

I've done a set on my turbo which I would have thought are very similar in design etc and that was fun I had to split the caliper in two to remove the piston, heat, set of punches and a big hammer eventually split them; don't know if you have to do that with the beta's.
When removing the pistons, I used an air line, with the piston facing a brick wall padded with cardboard and anything else i could find to soften the blow.
I can see a possible how-to guide here

[MattNoVAT]

 Yep, the how to will get pulled together when I do this next weekend.

[MattNoVAT]

So the brake seal kit arrived from Italy - perfect condition but the strange thing is....

Front repair kit comes with excellent instructions............ in Italian!

Rear repair kit comes with excellent instructions............. in French!

Hopefully the pictures will be enough to reverse engineer/guess!

[MattNoVAT]

And the update to this is...............

The brake repair kit was not for a Beta!   Gutted!

Two weeks & £30 wasted - hay ho

[thecolonel]

Speak to  pastpart or biggred 
both have helped with Gamma bits, which tend to be harder to find

http://www.pastparts.co.uk/

http://www.biggred.co.uk/

Geoff

[MattNoVAT]

Have already contacted Bigg Red and brakes will be sent off tomorrow as I need the car back on the road for Kilver Court !

While I'm talking to them I will be asking if they would sell me a few repair kits for the rear brakes for the Beta, as the back ones do not seem that hard to repair.

[HFStuart]

Past Parts are in my home town of Bury St Edmunds.

Very well respected  - been in business for at least 15 years.

[rossocorsa]

And the update to this is...............

The brake repair kit was not for a Beta!   Gutted!

Two weeks & £30 wasted - hay ho

that's bad hope you are sending it back or doing paypal claim

[Sledgewomble]

My Beta's just failed it's MOT on the callipers.  Can get them to work from foot pedal but not off the hand brake.  Have just spoken to omicron who are going to recondition them for £90.  Given the posts on here I reckon it's a reasonable price to get the job done and get Lucy back on the road

[archigraphe]

I'm looking at the front caliper kit, in the oline big red kit,
and I'm  questionning  from this kit,

in our front caliper we have two pistons, the bigred kit contains only one set for only one piston???

In there an error?

[MattNoVAT]

I'm sure all my Beta front brakes have only one piston.

I can go look in the wooden box that has about 8 sets of Beta brakes in it....

[targa2000]

Just rebuilt the front calipers and mine have 2 pistions, the main large one and a much smaller one behind a circular disc which is held in place by a rather tricky to remove spring clip.Bought the repair kits from a German e-bay shop.

[rossocorsa]

I'm sure all my Beta front brakes have only one piston.

I can go look in the wooden box that has about 8 sets of Beta brakes in it....

Properly fiendish lancia design one piston behind the other to give super duplex style split circuits one circuit front the other all four  makes the caliper fun to take apart

Sent from my MOMO11 bird using Tapatalk 2

[archigraphe]

I'm sure all my Beta front brakes have only one piston.

I can go look in the wooden box that has about 8 sets of Beta brakes in it....

Do you mean you have only one hose going to your front caliper?

[MattNoVAT]

That would explain it then, thanks chaps, I have learnt something new!!

I've always rebuilt my own rear calipers, which have their own challenges with the handbrake set up, not got round to doing the fronts so now it's something to look forward to. :-)

[VXdeMayo]

Guys,
I was asking about caliper stripdowns in my "Lulu" posting, and got some helpful advise, but it still is not clear. When taking the caliper shoe casting off the alloy piston assembly you first have to "depress a hollow roll pin" that dowels the two parts together. Now if the said pin is already pressed into the base of the hole on initial assembly, how can you depress it further??
Seeing that this is a hollow soft mild steel pin why not drill it out carefully, then tackle the alloy to steel corrosion interface with heat and Plus Gas, (but not at the same time)!
All experience welcome as I am at present trying to finish off the brake renovation.
Thanks guys,
Chas and Anne.

[targa2000]

Hi Chas,
Just finished my front calipers,the locating dowels on mine were not hollow and they are only 7mm in length plus the length of the spring which is 9mm uncompressed.
The spring and locating dowel are not a press fit, the spring sits into a hole in the alloy caliper  then the dowel goes on top, the dowel is pushed down compressing the spring whilst sliding on the carrier.You will be able to tell if your dowels are unseized if when you push down on them and they spring back to their original position.  
My dowels were seized but after spraying some releasing fluid into the small visible hole and letting it soak in overnight, I managed to free them using a punch and a little effort from the hammer! Where the dowel locates into the carrier it is tapered and has a shoulder so to stop it coming straight through.
I managed to press my caliper off the carrier using a large bench vice and some suitably positioned impact sockets, its quite fiddly to start with but once the vice had taken up the slack it worked a treat,make sure that you depress the locating dowel for the first few turns of the vice.
I didnt have to use any heat but a fair bit of effort  was needed whilst tightening the vice.
Hope this helps.
PS I'm pretty sure that I have some new locating dowels in the garage somewhere if you need to drill yours out.    

[archigraphe]

I think , If I want to restore the 74 caliper rusted in the bottom of my garage, I have to soak them no at least one week......

[targa2000]

Forgot to mention that whilst reconditioning a spare set of calipers one of them didnt even have a spring or dowel fitted!!