My 72 Comet Build.....

no rubber line between the hard line and caliper?

 

No reason for it..... The Wilwood calipers are not floating, they are solid mounted to the bracket.....

 

But won't it became a challenge to take a caliper off with the hard lines?

 

Although I have Aerospace Components an mine (which are also solid not floating) I don't
plan on taking them off very often....................changing pads doesn't require taking the calipers
off.
How many times would you take them off

 

they need to come off for gear changes. i find it frustrating when i have to work on cars that dont have a flex line going to the caliper. i understand it costs less and has much less chance of failure but when i have to bend it to remove the caliper to pull the axles i worry about crimping or fatiguing the lines.

 

Not really, worse thing that can happen is I have to remove the line at the caliper (no big deal)..... It's something that does not have to done very often.....

I agree 100%.....

Seems everyone has an opinion on this, but I am still going to do it the way I want on my car..... I am positive you won't have to worry about changing gear on my car..... Trust me on this one, cost difference had nothing to do with the way I did this, most people don't use .035 wall seamless stainless brake line tubing that cost almost $6.oo a foot.....

 

I wasn't aware of calipers that didn't need to be removed in order to change the brake pads

and I would only take them off to change the pads and/or rotors

 

Take a look at the file I attached. When you have fixed calipers you just need to center the caliper over the rotor (sometimes you need shims to get the caliper centered) then the caliper mounts directly to the bracket and over the rotor...................then you slip the pads in and secure them with the cross bolt.
If as Bryant said.............you are changing gears then you would need to take the hard line off, but as was mentioned.....the stainless lines are not cheap and at least on my drag car I didn't care to put rubber lines on the brake system.................maybe it's just me, but I feel safer that way....
plus since I am not changing gears but maybe once every season the hassle is just not an issue...............everyone to his own opinion.....IMHO

 

I see now how the pads come out of the top of the caliper - I never saw a set like that before so I can see how it can be hard plumbed.

 

I know a 2001 Ford Escort has front calipers like that. REAL easy to change the pads. Can get it done in less than 10 minutes both sides!!

 

So the main advantage of non-float calipers is the ease of pad xchg? Is there any other advantage worth mentioning?

 

I can't wait to install my Wilwood brakes!

 

The brakes we are talking about like Wilwood and Aerospace Components
are aluminum brackets, calipers and hats...........only thing steel is the rotor.
Weight, Weight, Weight..........................over 25lbs per wheel less.
For all four that's 100lbs of unsprung weight reduction.......and in a drag car that is a lot................and on a street car that is huge........IMHO

 

Ok thks for the breakdown! I wud think those lite weight comp's wud be more of advantage on drag car than on steet vechicle? I have seen race/competition car brake pad xchge on TV but did'nt know/think abt them being a non-float caliper design. I suppose a lot of the foreign OE cars like BMW, Mercedes and the like have non-float calipers? I don't recall seeing any on any of the big 3 w/ them; at least the ones I have worked on.

 

Today I got the axle bearings greased, installed the axles, rotors, calipers, brake lines and rear shocks(I know the OE shocks are crappy looking, but once I get the ride height established I will get Calvert racing to make me a set of 9 position adjustable rear shocks)..... Then I put the rear wheels/tires on so I could move it outside..... Then I started a very necessary shop cleaning..... Before I went home for the day I turned the car around and put it back in the shop..... Tomorrow I will finish cleaning, then get the front spindles removed so they can be cleaned up in preparation for the front brake install.....

Here's what it's looking like under the rear now.....






Here's a couple of it sitting outside.....