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Brake Caliper refurb

BChivs

Well-known member
Joined
2 Aug 2017
Messages
366
Have any of you sent your calipers off for a refresh and repaint?

Where is recommended? I have just ordered the parts for a Brake and suspension refresh which I plan doing over the winter.....thought it would be a good idea to have the calipers serviced and sent back to me looking new.
 
Tomas did my big reds
Better than perfect
The guy is a genius

Message me.
 

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stuttgartmetal said:
Tomas did my big reds
Better than perfect
The guy is a genius

Message me.

Is that the company Big Red?
 
Big reds are the big red calipers on a 993 C4S or 993 Turbo.
I snapped that photo just now.
 
Not cheap but VERY good.

Buy cheap, buy twice... :frustrated:

:thumb:
 
Caliper refurb is not cheap. All for corners will end up around £1000. Pro-Calipers I approached and their prices are good, but their costs I have to add labour cost for my indy to take off the calipers, courier them to get them refurbed and then courier back and then indy labour to re-fit and bleed the brake system.

In the end I found a prestige marque bodyshop and restoration company that does Ferrari, Lambo's classic Fezza's worth £0.5m upwards and does the refurb at his site with no subcontracting and courier necessary and it was slightly less expensive with titanium bleed valves and full Porsce caliper service set on each corner with new decals on each caliper (thorny subject as the decal is a Trademark and Porsche do not supply them). But I put it on hold whilst the car is on SORN now and I was away in the summer.

A small point but nobody has mentioned it so far, (and Pro-Calipers may be different now to my enquiry earlier this year) - is that Pro Calipers do not supply the Porsche decals. He told me I have to order that off the internet and stick them on by myself or get the indy to do it before he adds the refurbed calipers back to the car. That was a major red-line for me - I give him a set of calipers with Porsche original decals and he returns and give them back to me without the decals and tells me I have to find my own solution.

Good luck with whichever route you take and of course you may be a DIYer saving the indy labour costs and brake fluid change and bleeding I would incur if I used Pro-Caliper or any such company that asks you to send them the calipers.
 
I have to be honest, I didn't expect the costs to be what they are....I've only had one quote back so far which was knocking on for £900.
 
Yup! A lot of money that is purely cosmetic and adds little value (as against unsightly stone chip respray on PU and bonnet that will lower the value of car at sale time as that will be a prep cost for the dealer or purchaser).

I know some outfits will not do cosmetic resprays ( as my Ferrari guy and Pro-Calipers) and will recommend a full refurb with new seals etc. This is not incorrect and my Ferrari restorer finds seals shot and pistons stuck etc on dismantling calipers. That takes the price up. The estimate listed OPC supplied caliper seal sets x 4, 4 x new titanium bleed nipples, new decals and cost of brake fluid change and bleeding in addition to the caliper prep, respray/ powder coating and lacquer. So its a lot of work and the estimate said I needed to leave the car with him Monday and collect Fri pm. So add 2 x train tickets to the bill. Before one knows, its up to around £1100 assuming no broken nipples and helicoils required or other suitable repair arising from broken seized nipples.

I never asked anyone about a cosmetic refurb as I was convinced by both guys I talked to that it was not the solution that was right for me. But someone here may have an idea of how much and who does it.
 
You always going to find people that will go with half the job, just so they can look good to others with they freshly painted calipers and are not looking at the performance side of it.
Some will do it for as little as £30 for a tin of paint and few hours on they drive way, and be happy with the outcome.
Unfortunately this is not what i'm supplying and as of this i don't even what to get into more details as why you should or should not fully refurbished calipers with new seals as they will still tell you it's to much and they calipers works perfectly (getting this all the time).

No one said it's cheap and it's not purely cosmetics.
 
I'll just stick my oar in
Removing and replacing the calipers and bleeding the system is a cake walk.
Picking up and dropping off the calipers is also not difficult.
This refurb is not a cosmetic only job
993s suffer from plate lift
The refurb is a complete strip down and clean
Every seal is replaced
Plate lift presents itself as locked up brakes when you leave the car a few days
Tomas returns the calipers in the colour you want, and it looks better than new with the manufacturers logo on them as shown in my pic.
You just need new cal bolts from Porsche.
£7 each
That's a rip off that's for sure.
 
That Pro-Calipers returns the calipers with new decals is news and new to me since my enquiry to him earlier this year! A while back there was a legal tussle with Porsche he told me about him sticking the decals on the calipers due to trademark infringement.

It seems from what you are saying that the tussle has been legally settled and he is now authorised by Porsche to buy and stick on Porsche decals on the calipers.

I have no idea about the issue with air cooled discs. A good Indy stated to me that 996 and 997 turbo cars at my mileage (35k) miles don't have issues with seals and sticking pistons - in their experience. But if one does only caliper work, then of course one sees sticking pistons. The Fezza guy said that he buys 4 caliper seal sets and replaces all old seals whether fine or not - the customer is charged for the seal sets and they can't be refunded apparently - and yes he has replaced seals when the old ones are perfect. But its sensible to do so "whilst one is in there"

By the way, neither OPC or Porsche-approved bodyshop will refurb calipers - I already covered that base with them.
 
Anything that's older then 5 years is sticky now.
The less you use your car the more they get sticky.
Rubber does not last forever.
Most of garages will tell you that you have a problem with calipers when they are seized not sticky and that's a big difference.
Do you wait for bearings to fall apart or do you replace them when they get noisy?
 

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