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need some rear caliper advise




My sob story:  

I'm rebuilding a pair or rear calipers from an 87 16v rocco.   I tear down
the calipers, sand blast the calipers and carriers, powdercoat them and
begin to rebuild.  The first goes back together very easily and looks great,
the second gives more trouble.  In the process of dealing with the
additional trouble provided by the 2nd caliper, I drop the caliper piston.
In  a frantic attempt to catch it before it hits the cement floor and
potentially harms itself, I make a grab  at the falling piston and only
succede in effectively throwing the caliper at the floor with much more
force than had I simply dropped it.  Argh.  So now I have a 16v rear brake
caliper piston that does indeed have a dented skirt and no longer fits into
the bore in the caliper.  Double argh.  

What to do?  Every where I call wants to sell me a new or reman'd caliper.
The cost of a new caliper almost doubles the project cost, not good, and I'm
leary of  reman'd units as I'm told they never had the e brake issue worked
out.   I'
m not familiar with this problem, but I guess the e brake  quit working?
Anyway, I'm staying away from reman'd units for the time being.   


'So I'm thinking I need to find a  piston at a junk yard somewhere.  Do you
think that most VW rear brake calipers will have a piston of same  diameter
and functionality?  For instance, it will probably be easier to find an A2
or A3 Golf/Jetta with rear disc brakes to offer up a piston than a 16v
rocco.   Would this work for me?  

In thinking this through, I realized that if I was infact going to have to
buy new to get good calipers AND functional e brake mechanism, I should look
into finding a set of "New" calipers(off the Mk4s) as they're cast aluminum
and light.  So would these bolt up?   I might not mind shelling out for
those.....anyone got any experience to offer with that idea? 

Thanks for any ideas or guidance in how to cost effectively get around this
set back.   




Andrew Stauffer
Cannondale Purchasing
www.cannondale.com
andrew.stauffer@cannondale.com
ph. 814 623 4516
fax 814 623 8917