Subject: [Healeys] Disc Brake Upgrade

From: HealeyRick <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:41:04 -0700 (PDT)

There's been a few threads on disc brake upgrades lately so I thought I'd
share what I've been doing with my BJ7 that needed replacement of some scored
discs and rusty calipers.  The later BJ8s had the best stock front brakes
using a thicker rotor and a caliper with bigger pads and pistons. There are
also more hi-performance pads available for the bigger calipers. 
Unfortunately, they won't bolt on to the earlier cars as the spacing between
the caliper mounting lugs is 3.25" on the earlier cars and 3.50" on the BJ8s. 
I found this webpage that describes using calipers from an early '70s Mercury
Capri with the later discs as the Capri calipers have the correct lug
spacing: 
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2247236/1963-austin-healey-3000/page-2  One of
the benefits mentioned is that Capri calipers were cheaply available from
rebuilders, like Rock Auto.  That has changed.  In my experience, none of the
suppliers had them and I finally tracked a pair of
 rebuildable cores down in a junkyard in Idaho for $75 and spent another $70
to have them rebuilt at a local company that does caliper rebuilding for some
of the major suppliers.  The webpage mentions the differences between the
metric Capri calipers and the standard Healey ones except for one major item. 
The mounting holes on the Capri calipers are metric and slightly larger than
the Healey ones.  Luckily, later TR6s used a mounting bolt that have a metric
head and shank to fit the Capri mounting holes and a standard thread on the
bolt to fit the Healey lugs (I don't know who figures this stuff out or how
they do it, but I'm glad they post on the internet).  So far, the swap seems
to be going smoothly, I'll post up when it's all done.  Disclaimer:  Screw
with your brakes at your own risk!

Rick

"Madman in a death machine"
Follow My Nasty Boy Build:  http://tinyurl.com/yj52fwo
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