[Jazzbass]

In prepping for the Nov DE, I found that one of the rear bearings on the 911 was shot. Since it's been 10 years and a lot of track miles I decided to replace the bearings in all four corners. When I pulled the calipers to do this, they were looking pretty dirty and fried, so - WYIT - time to rebuild those too. My car is an 85 but has 964 Brembo brakes on it.

I've rebuilt lots of Brembos before. The process is always the same - order the seals from brake place in NJ, use air to get the pistons out, clean, install new seals, and swear like a motherf**ker trying to push the pistons back in with the new seals. They're new, so they should be tight as shit, right? Now, I'm very careful and do this 100% by hand now because there have been some issues in the past.

Well, while refreshing my memory on how to do this I found this thread on Rennlist: https://rennlist.com/forums/racing-a...ust-seals.html. The key post in this thread is by our own Forklift. Turns out most of the people selling "brembo" seals are actually selling Stoptech seals which are pretty close to the same (but not 100% the same). Word is the Brembo seals are a little better (better QC, etc). OK, so I want Brembo seals then. Well, turns out they're actually kinda hard to find for just the seal. You see, Brembo wants you to do rebuild the calipers correctly, so they sell kits where you replace the piston, seal and dust boot. For $60-$100 a piston. 16 pistons to rebuild and that gets expensive. No wonder people buy the $10 Stoptech seals.

After some searching I found that Paragon Products sells real Brembo seals outside of the full rebuild kit. I called and talk to them and asked specifically - "are these real Brembo or Stoptech seals?" 100% Brembo. "OK ship 'em"

Got them yesterday. Brembo packaging and the paint lines on the edge of the seals, just like the originals I pulled out (Stoptech seals are plain).



Reassembled the calipers and while there was a bit of force to get the pistons back in, they slid in nice and smoothly. None of the swearing/"holy shit did I just mess up my seal" type experience as with the Stoptechs. With everything back on the car I used air to pressure test the calipers - pressurize up to 70-80 psi, close a ball valve and see if there is any leakage. Come back a couple mins later and if there is still pressure then things look good.



All four corners look good. Two thumbs up, would recommend real Brembo seals over the Stoptechs. They're a bit more expensive, but worth it IMO.

[BlackTalon]

Great info -- thanks, Chris!

[arob]

Nice, Chris!

[HoodPin]

Nice write-up. Thanks.

[forklift]

I remember, the story is:

replaced all 4 calipers in 2006-ish and the both the fronts, one in particular stuck even when brand new. I figured it just needed to be broken in - never happened.

Jazz, you helped me rebuild them in your garage at some point (meaning I watched you do all the work ) and IIRC you had a hell of a time getting the seals/pistons to fit and pistons were still very difficult to move (never went in "nice and smoothly").

Then I sent them to the Brembo guy and his response is in the rennlist thread.

But they still stuck which I guess was due to some kind of machining problem but have no idea. 2 years ago I asked Charlie to take a look at them and when I picked my car up there were newused front calipers on my car so he didn't think much of them either even w/ the brembo seals in them.

Brakes, they just slow you down. Esp when they are always "on".

[AOW162435]

Chris,
I rebuilt my 993 calipers a few years ago and tried to save money by purchasing seals only from Zeckhausen. The seals & dust boots were light gray in color and flimsy. I returned them and ordered 16 full Bembo kits from Sunset...

993 caliper rebuild




Andreas