| C4 Corvette Chassis |
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| 1957 Corvette RestoMod Project - Page 10 Front Brake Disassembly and Preparation A wise race car driver once said going fast is important, but stopping is better. I couldn't agree more. And stopping under control is the best. In this installment, I take the front hub assemblies that were removed in page 5, and disassemble them for cleaning, prep, and rebuilding. The calipers on my Grand Sport front end are two piston cast aluminum and are very strong. My 1957 will be several hundred pounds lighter than the donor car, so two pistons is all it needs. The hubs are sealed so no bearings need be replaced - if the hub is bad, the entire hub assembly is replaced. Seventy to 80 percent of all braking happens up front. So the front brakes on my car need to be in perfect working condition. Chapter 4 of my new book covers all the necessary steps to easily rebuild your calipers. Disassembly is straightforward, but there are certain procedures you must follow to avoid damaging any of the brakes' hydraulic parts. Read on... |
| The right side of the suspension is seen here before disassembly. The rusted rotor and red (not black) caliper with CORVETTE script are seen on the outside. The rotor is bolted to the hub when the lug nuts and wheel are installed. The steering knuckle is bolted to the hub - the very top can be seen connected to the upper control arm via the upper ball joint. Also notice the upper control arm is bolted to the frame using a pivot bar. My plan is to replace the 13-inch rotors with new drilled and slotted ones that allow brake gases to escape and keep the pads planted on the rotor at high temperature. You have already seen the lower ball joints being replaced, and you have seen how I removed the upper ball joints from the upper control arms (drilled out the rivets). The shocks and all bushings will also be replaced. These parts wear out and are not "lifetime" type parts. |
| During the front end disassembly, the brake lines were removed from the calipers. Make sure you have a bucket or other receptacle to catch the brake fluid. This stuff is really caustic to painted parts. It won't burn your hands, but it really doesn't like painted surfaces. Some of you may be saying that the Grand Sport did not have red calipers - and you are right! Whoever owned the donor car painted these calipers red. How do I know? Read on and I will show you! |
| Calipers are bolted to the steering knuckle using a caliper bracket. This is a cast steel piece seen here. Hand tools can be used, but you better have a lot of elbow grease! Here I used an impact wrench to loosen the bolts, then I used a socket wrench to remove the bolts. Impact wrenches have a lot of power, and can sometimes gall bolts by building up heat quickly in the fastener. Don't act like you're in NASCAR, take care of the parts you will need for assembly! |
| With the caliper bracket bolts removed, a retaining pin (seen lower left) is also removed. The pin is held in place by a E-clip. The pin is used to secure the bracket to the caliper and pads. The caliper is a wonderfully simple hydraulic mechanism. The two "humps" on the right are the caliper piston bores. When the brake pedal is depressed, hydraulic fluid is pressurized and pushed through the brake lines to the caliper pistons. The pistons then push out, and the outer brake pads are then contacted, and even pressure is applied to the rotor - result, the car stops. |
| Pictured left is the outer brake pad. You can see they have outer prongs that fit into the outside of the caliper housing. Even though there is plenty of pad wear available, I will replace them anyway. Old pads, even with material left, are prone to cracking under the intense heat of braking - and I'm not taking any chances. I will also rebuild the caliper pistons. I'm not quite sure how to do this yet, but I do know that the piston and outer walls cannot be even slightly damaged in any way - or I'll be buying new ones (no budget for that!). |
| With the caliper removed, now you can remove the steering knuckle from the hub. Again, my impact gun was used with a wrench holding the bolt head from underneath. I can't stress enough to be careful around the cast aluminum parts. Bumps and scrapes that would not affect steel parts can put bad gouges in these parts. If I remember correctly, the arm nearest my hand is where the tie rod is connected. The far left arm is for the upper ball joint, and the far right arm is where the lower ball joint is connected. All of these contribute to the ride and handling of the car. |
| See, I told you the calipers were painted! Here, I media blasted half of the caliper and you can see along the edge of the blast line the black powder coating. My plan is to bring them back to black (to go with the car's theme - more on that later) using high temperature caliper paint. Also notice at lower left the plug used to keep blast media out of the caliper. The plugged opening is where the brake line is attached. Lower right is the bleed screw housed in a rubber cap. |
1957 Corvette RestoMod