Done with these bad brakes!
- Thread starter Morphyne
- Start date
Looks great. Mine are going to be red too. I debated between silver (too much like AMG) and blue (not very TRD themed). Black was an option too but I decided to go with red for now haha.
WMU53
New member
I purchased NAPA reman calipers for the front of my 4th Gen. Both failed during the bleeding process. Fluid squirted out in the centre between the matted surfaces. Pure Junk! The paint looked good but there was difficulty installing the compression fitting on both. Returned the JUNK and purchased Toyota reman calipers. Clean installation.
Hope your calipers last and don't fail when there most needed.
SOS performance came through and I got my calipers in direct from Stoptech. Originally they were trying to say the kit was 5th gen specific but they must have figured out it would work since they sell the same calipers for the 340 mm kit and what I have is the 355 mm kit. I just need to order a new set of SS lines for the kit and I'll be chunking the old calipers in the garbage lol.
Yeah my wheels are 18x8 and they clear them by maybe half a cm. I had the stock 17s just to sit on and they won't clear only the 340 mm kit will clear the 17s. The BBK was a night and day difference in brake pedal feel and stopping distance on my 3rd gen. Hopefully its the same when I do the upgrade to the 4th gen.
Are you having second thoughts with the issues you're having with RR and the wilwood kit?
Mike07SE
New member
18x8? What wheels and their offset/BS specs? The braking performance I've experienced to so far has been phenomenal. I have nothing bad to say about the Wilwoods, just the vendor that put together the BBK I bought.
To your question. Well it's more of a hindsight that if I were to do it again I would definitely recommend to go with SOS's StopTech kit. I'm still working out the bugs of this kit being incomplete and that I haven't had the support that I would have expected from RR Racing. The brakes are on and do work great, but not the 100% bolt on setup that I had expected. Once it's 100% complete I will do a writeup and document what I went through and their shortcomings. At this point I cannot recommend them to anybody reading this.
I may down the line go with the SOS StopTech 355mm kit if I go with bigger wheels. When that happens, I hope to possibly sell what I have to the next guy all ready to go with all of the guess work and bugs worked out. Up to this point, I couldn't imagine taking them off and passing it along to somebody else the way RR-R gave it to me. I really do feel like I was ripped off.
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Just some insight that I want to put out there. On all the brake rebuilds/replacements I've performed, the key problem is allowing rust to form under the piston boots. Once rust forms inside, those rust particles cause the piston to seize/freeze. The grease I've used is what Toyota sells. It's that pink grease. I've since switched over to 3M's Silicon paste. I also paint my calipers everywhere including where the boots sit. That way there's no chance for rust to start anywhere or creep up under the boots. Silicon also handles heat and lasts longer. Most other greases aside from Castrol's Red grease is going to give you headaches. Permatex grease regardless if its green, pink, etc are all crap. They dry up and cause piston's to seize.
The main culprit is rusting of the caliper.
Powdercoated or painted calipers are the best as that will slow rust down. It won't eliminate it completely because there are parts of the caliper that will have exposed metal (pin holes, mounting bolts, where the pads rub).
Unfortunately cast iron calipers suck compares to cast aluminum calipers.
The main culprit is rusting of the caliper.
Powdercoated or painted calipers are the best as that will slow rust down. It won't eliminate it completely because there are parts of the caliper that will have exposed metal (pin holes, mounting bolts, where the pads rub).
Unfortunately cast iron calipers suck compares to cast aluminum calipers.
This picture of rusty calipers makes me happy that I live in the desert.
brucemoose2
New member
Replaced my front right caliper today. My 4Runner is a 2007 that I've owned since 2009.
My first replacement was in April, 2014 with lifetime warranty calipers from O'Reilly Auto Parts. Both of the original calipers had both inner pistons totally seized. They were bad enough that I had to beat the pins out with a hammer and punch to get them off.
One of those 2 calipers installed in 2014 is still working fine. But the right front failed for the second time in October 2017 (3.5 years, ~35-40k miles later). It just failed on me for the 3rd time (11 months, 7k miles later). The second and third failures were both one of the inner pistons.
This is just ridiculous. I used to live in the northeast - which probably helps to explain the first failure of both calipers. But I'm now in the pacific northwest and there really isn't a salt issue here. I just don't get how Toyota can make such garbage calipers. These things have to be the worst design possible.
Best advice I can give anyone reading this is to buy calipers locally and with a lifetime warranty. I can change these things blindfolded now.
By the way, I regularly remove and re-lube the pins in these things in an attempt to keep the pads moving properly. This makes almost no difference, from what I can tell. If they are rusted solid, the pistons will freeze for sure. But it turns out that even if the pins are coated in caliper grease, the pistons will freeze...
My first replacement was in April, 2014 with lifetime warranty calipers from O'Reilly Auto Parts. Both of the original calipers had both inner pistons totally seized. They were bad enough that I had to beat the pins out with a hammer and punch to get them off.
One of those 2 calipers installed in 2014 is still working fine. But the right front failed for the second time in October 2017 (3.5 years, ~35-40k miles later). It just failed on me for the 3rd time (11 months, 7k miles later). The second and third failures were both one of the inner pistons.
This is just ridiculous. I used to live in the northeast - which probably helps to explain the first failure of both calipers. But I'm now in the pacific northwest and there really isn't a salt issue here. I just don't get how Toyota can make such garbage calipers. These things have to be the worst design possible.
Best advice I can give anyone reading this is to buy calipers locally and with a lifetime warranty. I can change these things blindfolded now.
By the way, I regularly remove and re-lube the pins in these things in an attempt to keep the pads moving properly. This makes almost no difference, from what I can tell. If they are rusted solid, the pistons will freeze for sure. But it turns out that even if the pins are coated in caliper grease, the pistons will freeze...
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Spent the past 3 out of 4 days refreshing the braking system. Full 3 pairs of ss lines. New front 6 piston calipers and 5th gen rear calipers. I’ll be bedding the brakes tonight but feels pretty good. Spent maybe 7 hours total because of having to cut the dust shields and dealing with some rust. Flushed the system with valvoline first and then filled with motul rbf600.
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