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The next step was to begin to adjust and fit the caliper. This required some work with the grinder and with a stone mounted in a die grinder. I ended up with grindings everywhere; the bench, the floor, in boxes, my hair, my teeth. Oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do.
I drilled out all the holes, of course, but I deliberately made them a touch oversize. I am doing this by hand, after all. It really shouldn't be a problem, IMHO.
I actually had a set of the original brackets to use with transfer punches, but I don't think that is necessary. If I didn't have them, I would get the hole on the inside of the ring all set first. Then I would mark the plate by clamping it to the spindle and then using the holes on the spindle to mark where the holes should go. Easy enough.
With the plate set, I began to fuss with the caliper location. Once I had it where I wanted it, I tack welded a nut on the back of the plate. This is actually quite a trick. A normal sized nut is too tall, and so I had to grind one down to about 2/3 the normal height. I then had to use a needle nose vice-grip to hold is while I threaded the bolt. Splatter is also an issue since the actual disk surface is right there. I cut up a tin can and covered the disk in that area with a piece of it. It worked like a charm.
Getting the caliper location right will take some doing. I struggled with this and never did get it perfect. If you get it too high, meaning further away from the axis of rotation, then the pads might be able to overhang the disk. This is very bad. Richard Jemison (Alfar7) has rightly warned against this on this board and the yahoo board. The problem is that if the pad wears down enough, the portions of the pad that overhang the disk (and don't wear) can touch. In this case you will instantly have zero brakes, which will likely ruin your day.
I made the opposite mistake in that I had the calipers too close to the axis. The disks are cast iron, so the hat isn't perfectly round. I didn't check this well enough, so the caliper ended up dragging for part of the rotation. I had already assembled and disassembled that hub so many times that I just couldn't take it anymore. I was also in no mood to hacksaw another bracket just to get another 1mm of clearance. So, I took that caliper over to the bench grinder and removed the offending 1mm. Eat that, Caliper!! Now it works! Ok, that isn't the right way to do it, I know. I have tried to adjust the template to account for all this though.
In the last picture, I have tried to show that next hitch that I had to deal with. The brake line location is not the same as it would be on the Girling calipers. Actually, with these Brembo's it turns out to be in a pretty bad spot.....right in front of one of the mounting bolts. I solved this by getting a new bolt and cutting it to the right size and using one nut rather than the normal nut + jam nut.
More to come...
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