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[Harison213]

Hi everybody,

I managed to crash sideways into kerb few weeks ago and ended up with a bent trailing arm and tie rod, snapped caliper, snapped coil spring and broken alloy all on rear offside wheel! That hurt   Front alignment seems to have gone crazy as the steering wheel stands at some 45 degrees angle. I can only hope nothing's wrong with it but the alignment  :-/

Anyway, had trouble finding the trailing arm for which dealer wanted over £400 and two weeks lead time. Managed to find it through scrappies though for only £50 and it included hub, bushes, brake shoes, etc. I also got a caliper for I think £15 which the braker told me would fit my car. By the way I'm driving a 2002 2.2 petrol miggie.

Questions:

1. When I got home, I checked the caliper and it was a different shape to mine (possibly from a pre-facelift?). It seems to fit nicely on the arm, but my old one was a bit bulkier with two sort of knobs at the two ends (around pitson and on the outer side of the caliper). Just wondering if it's ok to use these or shall I take them back? If it's ok, would it invalidate insurance just in case?

2. Not sure how common changing a trailing arm would be and it seemed to me to be very straight forward. Any points doing a tutorial?

Cheers.

[jonathanh]

there are two types of rear brakes the facelift using a vented rear disc, the pfl does not.  I can't recall whether the facelift 2.2 would be vented but I suspect you have a different type of caliper there.  What you describe looks like a pfl according to a small piccie in the haynes book

Personally i'd replace like with like, apart from invalidating insurance it could be lethal to drive with one wheel more prone to lock up than the other

[Welung666]

Is it the front or rear caliper?

[Harison213]

Thanks for replies guys. It's a rear caliper. I'm not sure about pfl, but the disc doesn't seem to be vented (or probably is but it's rusted all around as I can see some groves around it!). I remember the breaker mentioned it's off a 2.5 omega which he said is the same as 2.2. Original calipers look like the ones in Haynes manual and this is a picture of it: (sorry for low quality pic)



And this is the picture of the one in question:



Any helps would be appreciated as the breaker (the one near Heathrow) is some 60 miles away from me and would rather to avoid the journey if I can.

[unlucky alf]

for a start i would make sure the disc is the same [if you got it] then see if the mounting holes are the same on the calipers, as yours is a late one it might be easier to get another early type caliper for the other side to make both sides even

[jonathanh]

ok.  there are two types of rear disc on the 2.2 92.6 and 3.2) some models have a solid disc and some have vented.  I believe the vented ones are later model.  as far as i can tell, all calipers are made by ATE.  the critical difference is that the vented discs are 20mm thinkness, the solid 12mm

All 2.0,2.5and 3.0 as far as i can tell have solid rear discs

Your original picture shows a caliper identical to mine.  I believe that the caliper you have is compatible with a vented 20mm rear disc ( this must be from a late model 2.2, 2.6 or 3.2 and not a 2.5)

have a look at the ATE catalogue here - you'll need to do a bit of searching but there are some useful pictures to confirm this.  

http://www.conti-online.com/generator/www/com/en/ate/ate/themes/10_products/20_hydraulic-parts/10_brake_calipers/sa_index_en.html

I think it is back to the breaker at the very least - ask to see the car if you can.  the alternative would be a relacement caliper from a factor - at least it would be known good

[Harison213]

ok.  there are two types of rear disc on the 2.2 92.6 and 3.2) some models have a solid disc and some have vented.  I believe the vented ones are later model.  as far as i can tell, all calipers are made by ATE.  the critical difference is that the vented discs are 20mm thinkness, the solid 12mm

All 2.0,2.5and 3.0 as far as i can tell have solid rear discs

Your original picture shows a caliper identical to mine.  I believe that the caliper you have is compatible with a vented 20mm rear disc ( this must be from a late model 2.2, 2.6 or 3.2 and not a 2.5)

have a look at the ATE catalogue here - you'll need to do a bit of searching but there are some useful pictures to confirm this.  

http://www.conti-online.com/generator/www/com/en/ate/ate/themes/10_products/20_hydraulic-parts/10_brake_calipers/sa_index_en.html

I think it is back to the breaker at the very least - ask to see the car if you can.  the alternative would be a relacement caliper from a factor - at least it would be known good

Thanks for reply and the link. I found both calipers in the catalogue but I'm not able to post the link as it's session dependent.

Just as you mentioned, my new one is listed as the one for vented discs (which mine isn't) and the old one for solid discs. ATE catalogue shows 2.2, 2.5, etc. as all having same caliper and the only difference might come from disc.

That said I fitted the caliper (only for time being until I get a proper one) and it seemed a nice fit, i.e. no more than a couple of mm space around the disc. Are you sure the difference between vented and solid is 8mm as I definitely didn't have that much of a gap.

[jonathanh]

I was quoting the disc thinkness from the ATE catalogue, unless I looked them up wrong.