CanadianRover

Hello Everyone,

My apologies if this has been covered before; I did search through the forums, but wasn't able to find what I was looking for.

I have a '78 Vette, with about 38k miles and have been dealing with leaky brake calipers as of late. I've done some research, and the consensus seems to be that having your calipers rebuilt with stainless steel sleeve inserts and O-Rings is the recommended way to deal with this.

I have a few questions, though.

I found remanufactured calipers on RockAuto, ACDelco 18FR816/18FR817, that are listed as already having stainless steel sleeves in them (Link & Link). Does anyone have any experience with these? Would they have O-Rings already installed, or would they use lip seals? If they use lip seals, could I replace the lip seals with O-Rings?

If those won't work, how would I go about getting my existing calipers rebuilt? Does anyone here have any experience with getting this done?

Do the stainless steel sleeves eliminate the problems with the lip seals? Or, are O-Rings still recommended? My car sits most of the year in my garage (due to weather) and my forum searching this evening suggested that that O-Ring brake pistons are more prone to seizing or sticking. Can anyone shed light on this?

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

Cheers!

Tampa Jerry

I would check to see if your calipers have ever been sleeved in stainless steel. If so, rebuilding is easy. Determine if the pistons are bad and if so, buy a rebuild kit with new pistons. Both my 66 and 68 coupes do not get driven as much as I like, so I installed O-ring type pistons. No problem in 10 years. I have installed O-ring pistons in another 6 cars for friends. If your calipers are not sleeved, send them out to a vendor that will either sleeve yours or send back rebuilt calipers with Delco Moraine castings., Some of the rebuilding service companies are not using Delco Moraine calipers and are instead using offshore castings. Some people prefer the original seals, but for cars not driven on a regular basis, I find O-rings hold up better. I also use fresh DOT 4 for fluid. Lastly, I bleed the brakes every few years to keep the fluid clean. Good luck with your car. Jerry

hunt4cleanair

Your 78 is doing good if its just now calipers are leaking so Tampa Jerry's suggestion to check first for stainless steel sleeves is a solid suggestion, but then the question arises, why leaking again? My 78 is sitting at 35k miles and I replaced with stainless sleeves and O rings back in 2002-03. I use silicone and the pedal remains solid to this day.

I go to the major Corvette shows (Carlisle, BG) and ended up working through LoneStar after much research, finding they knew their stuff and have a techie who provided insights into the issues you're exploring. Stick with stainless sleeves and O-rings...purchase rebuilts that way fitted with O-rings so you do not have to revisit the topic again.

I spent quite a bit of time studying this issue on my Pace Car and elected to buy sleeved calipers and not worry about rebuilding the original calipers. It costs much more and simply did not make sense to hang onto calipers and forfeit the $200 core charge.

If the work is done correctly, then seizing and sticking should not occur. But take note, if all four calipers are being replaced/rebuilt/etc, then the master cylinder is due for service as well. Otherwise the corrupted fluid source, such as sludge from rust, will continue to contaminate the brake fluid contributing to the seizure/sticking issue. Do it all now so you have a baseline to know going forward the status of your brake system. While you're at it, for safety sake, check the rubber hoses that go from brake lines to the calipers.

You got it!