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1G Rear AWD Drivers Caliper = North American Outage!! Ideas?

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Car Cannibal

20+ Year Contributor
532
58
Jun 7, 2003
Chicago, Illinois
Well if you are like me with a 1991 all wheel drive AWD and your rear drivers caliper starts to go, you're screwed.

I've searched for months, this caliper is not coming back, EVEN IN CANADA!!

I've heard you can take the FWD caliper, swap brackets and then shave it down and it'll work?

Options for us AWD guys?
 
What is entailed for converting to 1990 rear calipers?

Rebuild is last resort, mechanics will charge far more than a $70 caliper from the store.

I believe 3kGT requires quiet a bit to convert.
 
You just need the 90 calipers and maybe 90 rotors if they’re different. I tried to rebuild mine and it was too hard. Some stupid ass spring and piston etc that I couldn’t get to work.
 
Pauleyman, have you rebuilt a rear caliper?
If so, how long did it take you then how much $ for the parts? Time x $115 an hour then the parts, you're going to see my point.

Rebuild is an option, but not the best one if there's an easier time and $ solution moving forwards.
 
Honestly its really not that serious of an issue if we run out of calipers. There are a plethora of them out there that can be made to fit with adapters/brackets. It just hasnt been fully explored yet.
 
FWIW I've been rebuilding the rear calipers on my '92 Talon TSI AWD and it's not THAT hard or time-consuming. Well, the actual taking apart and putting back together, and cleaning the individual parts, is pretty easy. Getting 28 years of rust, crud, grime, dirt and whatnot off the outside of the calipers and inner seal and boot grooves is another story, but aside from the grooves you don't really HAVE to do the rest. I just wanted them to look as good if not better than new, and took my time at it.

After getting all that off of them I also painted them with black caliper paint and think they look pretty nice. I also derusted, cleaned and painted the trailing arm and control arms, mostly because they were really dirty and rusty but also because they looked awful. One caliper's about ready to go back on the trailing arm and the other just needs to be put back together, around an hour's work.

If your time is that precious and you don't want to undertake such a task, I can understand that, but given how hard to impossible it is to find replacement calipers for these cars, you might not have a choice, and unless your calipers are really messed up, like a rusted beyond repair piston bore or needle bearing, it's a last-resort option that like I said isn't too bad, compared to say an engine or transmission rebuild. Kits to replace the seals, boots, o-rings and boot rings are available, and I'm pretty sure you can buy replacement pistons and perhaps other metal parts.

If you do decide to rebuild them, there's an excellent how-to by Calan you should look at.

Also, FWIW, I've attached some images of the before, during and after.

Before, pretty disgusting:

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After getting all loose dust, dirt & crud off:

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After more intensive derusting and cleaning, using wire brushes & chemicals:

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And after painting with Rustoleum caliper paint:

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Oh, and the finished right rear suspension, where I'm about to reinstall it:

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We've run out of AWD 91 calipers in part stores, that's the point of this thread. I've owned one of these since 2001, the rear calipers are not great so if there's a swap option to something different that would be great. If not, I'll deal with 25k hang ups and swapping them out like I have for 20 years.

The other point was to get a head start for us AWD guys moving forwards with proven options by members. This way you're not like me over the last 4 months thinking these calipers are coming back in stock, not happening, suppliers have confirmed this so far. I'm now on a dead driver side brake pad and it's getting my new wheel rusty, this blows.

I'm mainly interested in seeing if X Dsm caliper bolts on with X amount of minor mods and you're good. This seems to be out there...

91 rear Fwd caliper, use bracket from AWD, shave it down. Not 100% sure on the details but a member has said this works. I'll try this and get back with pictures. Same pads and 1991+ rotor at 10.4" so that's good.

Rebuilding is still out there, there are places that do it. But your time, shops time and car down time are all big factors here. Member preference there, personally its a last resort vs in stock caliper swaps or complete aftermarket kit swap overs that keep the E brake.
 
A rebuild like I did it is clearly labor and time-intensive, and I only did it because I have the time and it's literally been 28 years since the brakes were properly cleaned and rebuilt, as you can tell from the above image, and I wanted to do it "right". But, if you don't care about looks as much or your brakes look relatively ok, the actual rebuild shouldn't take that long, a few hours per caliper tops if you know what you're doing and follow the above-referenced guide. I'm talking removing the boots, pistons, inner parts, etc., cleaning and derusting them, lubing everything and putting it back together. It's NOT that hard. Unless you don't like the actual design of the OEM calipers and want better ones, given that it's basically impossible to obtain new ones, your only option may well be to rebuild yours, unless you luck out. And the time to track down new or reman OEMs is probably more than the time to rebuild yours.
 
I know over on the Starquestclub board we have the same problem ... everything brake related is obsolete and no longer available for Starions and Conquests. But, I know several guys over there who have contacted Centric and they will rebuild the brakes for you if you don't want to do it yourself. You just have to send them to them. They just don't have any cores anymore to do the exchange program. You could give them a call and see if that is something they could do for 1G AWD's as well. I bet they would.
 
Awesome post, Centric HAS CALIPERS, they just weren't a priority. They'll rebuild them special order through vendors if you give these part numbers....
1991 Turbo Talon/ Eclipse, rear AWD

141.46515 (passenger)
141.46516 (driver)

They need about 2 weeks to rebuild THEIR core.

My local Car X has a shop that rebuilds them the same day so I'm going this route. But we have solutions, the problem Centric said was..

Internet buyers aren't shipping back cores to get the core fee refunded. This makes sense, the shipping is as much as the fee refund so they're gonna have to do a better job and start having local vendor drop offs.
 
Honestly its really not that serious of an issue if we run out of calipers. There are a plethora of them out there that can be made to fit with adapters/brackets. It just hasnt been fully explored yet.
Yes I have. Its been awhile. Seems like it was under an hour including cleanup and the parts were under 20$ unless you needed a new piston.
 
Well if you are like me with a 1991 all wheel drive AWD and your rear drivers caliper starts to go, you're screwed.

I've searched for months, this caliper is not coming back, EVEN IN CANADA!!

I've heard you can take the FWD caliper, swap brackets and then shave it down and it'll work?

Options for us AWD guys?

They ARE available, just rare and expensive as hell!
 
Pauleyman, have you rebuilt a rear caliper?
If so, how long did it take you then how much $ for the parts? Time x $115 an hour then the parts, you're going to see my point.

Rebuild is an option, but not the best one if there's an easier time and $ solution moving forwards.
If you're paying somebody I can see it costing a little more than a parts exchange but given the circumstances what choice do you have? Over the course of 9 different cars and surely 500k miles ive only ever replaced a couple seals. When I'm doing brake work I take all hardware apart and grease everything. My fluid also gets changed periodically. More frequently if I track the car. Its cheap and easy and keeps you from having to buy a new caliper in the first place.
 
Local repair shop found a caliper rebuild shop to do them. It was $75 total for both but we'll see.

But Centric had them.
 
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