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C5 Rear rotor/caliper/bracket Q??

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Old May 13, 2008 | 04:25 PM
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Default C5 Rear rotor/caliper/bracket Q??

I am installing some C6 Z51 rotors on the rear of my Z. I got the new caliper brackets today. My question is... do the bolts that the run from the caliper to the bracket tighten? I just turned them to loosen, but nothing really happend other than they turned. Then I just slid the old caliper bracket off and the new one on. Did I do this correctly? Maybe, I'm just overthinking this, but it seems too simple. Let me know please!! Thanks!!
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Old May 13, 2008 | 04:53 PM
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Well, yes they tighten, but the caliper, on the C5 at least, float on a pin that the bolt goes into. There are flats on the inside of the caliper bracket. Use locktite on the bolts.
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Old May 13, 2008 | 09:14 PM
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Two large caliper bracket bolts that hold the bracket to the knuckle. They are tightened to 125 lb/ft. Then there are two caliper guide pin bolts. They fasten the caliper to the bracket and allow the caliper to slide along their length. It takes two wrenches to tighten/loosen these bolts. A 15 mm for the head of the bolt and a 17 mm open end for the flats on the guide pin. Check the torque spec on these but I think they are around 23 lb/ft.

Bill
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Old May 14, 2008 | 08:41 AM
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Originally Posted by Bill Dearborn
Two large caliper bracket bolts that hold the bracket to the knuckle. They are tightened to 125 lb/ft. Then there are two caliper guide pin bolts. They fasten the caliper to the bracket and allow the caliper to slide along their length. It takes two wrenches to tighten/loosen these bolts. A 15 mm for the head of the bolt and a 17 mm open end for the flats on the guide pin. Check the torque spec on these but I think they are around 23 lb/ft.

Bill
I do not have to loosen or tighten the caliper guide pins if I am not changing calipers though, correct? I just changed the brackets to C6 Z51 brackets to accomodate the z51 rotors.
Anyhow, that's how I put it back together, I just slid the new brackets onto the pins w/o loosening or tightening anything. Put the pads back in, put them on, and then torqued the caliper bolts to 125. I drove it, not very far, everything seemed fine.
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Old May 14, 2008 | 09:05 AM
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Chad, get that thing together. You only have a week to go!

Cruise In or bust!

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Old May 14, 2008 | 10:53 AM
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Hi cmb396 -

I think we need some definitions here -

The calipers bolt to the caliper brackets using the smaller bolts, and they only require 23 ftlbs of torque.

The caliper mounting brackets are mounted with two large bolts that require 160 ftlbs *(I think - working from memory on this one...)



So - you could have mounted the calipers and brackets as one unit - and then just tightened the caliper mounting bracket bolts down to spec and then hook up the hydraulics and be fine.

Check out this link for more pictures - because pictures > 1000 words.....

http://www.iammoon.com/c5tech/caliper_painting.htm

best regards -

mqqn
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Old May 14, 2008 | 11:01 AM
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the caliper bracket bolts require 125 ft-lbs of torque and blue locktite.
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Old May 14, 2008 | 01:07 PM
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mqqn, thanks for the pic, and the proper terminology on the bolts.

I am talking about the caliper mounting bolts. Do the caliper brackets just "float" on the pins that are on there? I slid the old brackets off the pins, and slid the new Z51 brackets onto the pins, installed the pads, put everything back together.

I guess my question really is, how do I torque the caliper mounting bolts to 23lbs, when I do not even do anything to the caliper mounting bolt other than remove the old brackets and put the new brackets on???
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Old May 14, 2008 | 01:36 PM
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Originally Posted by JJS04
Chad, get that thing together. You only have a week to go!

Cruise In or bust!

It's back together...I'm just trying to make sure I put it back together the right way. I would hate for my rear brakes to fail on the way down, especially, at the rate we'll be going!!!
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Old May 14, 2008 | 02:48 PM
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Originally Posted by cmb396

I guess my question really is, how do I torque the caliper mounting bolts to 23lbs, when I do not even do anything to the caliper mounting bolt other than remove the old brackets and put the new brackets on???
I see you have it on but did you solve the problem of torqueing the guide pin bolts (GM uses two names for these bolts). If you moved the caliper from the old bracket to the new bracket you had remove these two bolts.

Here is a picture:


Where number 1 is the bolt, number 2 is the caliper, number 3 is the caliper bracket, number 4 is the boot, and number 5 is the pin. There are two flat spots on the pin (usually hidden just inside the boot) that allow a 17 mm open end wrench to be fitted to the pin so you can tighten the bolt.

If you got these two bolts and the two bolts that fasten the whole assembly to the knuckle tightened properly then you should be OK.

Bill
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Old May 14, 2008 | 05:59 PM
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^How do the guide pins attach to the caliper bracket?
I am so confused b/c, I did not loosen anything to pull the caliper bracket off, they just slid off the pin, I took the boot off the original bracket, put it on the new bracket, and slid the new bracket back on the guide pins.
I never loosened the guide pin bolts that attach the guide pin to the caliper.
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Old May 14, 2008 | 07:21 PM
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Originally Posted by cmb396
^How do the guide pins attach to the caliper bracket?
I am so confused b/c, I did not loosen anything to pull the caliper bracket off, they just slid off the pin, I took the boot off the original bracket, put it on the new bracket, and slid the new bracket back on the guide pins.
I never loosened the guide pin bolts that attach the guide pin to the caliper.
I think your terminology is confusing everyone ......

I suspect this is what you did ......

1) You received from someone/somewhere a C6 caliper already installed onto the caliper bracket.

2) You undid the 125 ft/lb bracket bolts (The one's in mqqn's picture that says "these stay in place") and the brake line and removved the C5 caliper and bracket in their entirety.

3) You put the C6 caliper and bracket assembly on with the bracket bolts tightened correctly to 125 lb/ft

4) You replaced brake line ... you're done

That should in fact work.

Is that what happened ??????

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Old May 14, 2008 | 07:52 PM
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^ No...
I bought new c6 z51 rotors and brackets
-I removed my calipers, but did not unhook the lines
-removed the rotors (I recieved the brackets after the rotors)
-Once the brackets came in, I removed the original caliper brackets by sliding them off the mounting pins, the caliper mounting pin bolts were not removed.
-I slid the new brackets on the mounting pins just opposite of the way I slid the factory caliper brackets off.
-I installed the brake pads
-I reinstalled the calipers on the rotors w/the new c6 z51 brackets and torqued the bolts to the knuckle to 125lbs
-I spun the rotors on each side to make sure they turned ok, they did, no rubbing
-I put the wheels back on and drove it down the road about a mile then back...no problems!!

I guess I am just second guessing the procedure after reading about having to torque the caliper mounting pin bolts to 23 lbs??? How can I retorque them if they were never untorqued? Unless, I did the install wrong?!?!
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Old May 14, 2008 | 09:46 PM
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It's kind of an "unorthodox" way to do it .... but it works .....

Again its your terminology .... in your first step you removed the caliper AND bracket (as I guessed) by undoing the caliper bracket bolts (The one's in mqqn's picture that says "these stay in place")

Normally the bracket is not removed, so to replace the brake pads you will need to undo at least one caliper guide pin bolt to swing the caliper away from the pads.

Have fun with it .....

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Old May 14, 2008 | 10:11 PM
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Thanks for the help BlackZ06!!! I never did like doing things the normal way!!!
Here's the end result...

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Old May 15, 2008 | 08:55 AM
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What did you do for the front?
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Old May 15, 2008 | 09:13 AM
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^I already had Baer Eradispeeds on the front. I put the C6 rears on for a "budget bling" mod!!
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Old May 15, 2008 | 09:30 AM
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Nice, are the fronts stock C5 size or C6 Z51 size?
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Old May 15, 2008 | 09:56 AM
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The two smaller bolts that the picture shows as "caliper mounting bolts" are reccommended to be replaced with new, once taken off. I know, most dont, including myself. But if your torque wrench is off by a few lbs., or your just guess torqueing w/ regular wrench. It doesn't take long to stress these small bolts out to the point of braking off. If this were to happen the bolt would just turn. I've had one brake off, and its no big deal to get the broken part removed. What im trying to say is it does't take much torque(23ft.lbs.) Adding the blue locktite, and not over torqueing is important.( especially not over torqueing) The two larger bolts that you gorrila torque should have red(hi strength) red loctite. An air gun will remove these larger bolts w/ the hi strenth locktite, quite eazy. Your wheels are O SO NICE!!!
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Old May 15, 2008 | 03:45 PM
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Default Red Locktite

Originally Posted by rws.1
the caliper bracket bolts require 125 ft-lbs of torque and blue locktite.
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