has anybody seen one of these crack down the side? i climbed a hill today and when i got to the top and turned around to come down i had no brakes that sucked. thought i broke a line but the hole side of the caliber was busted. i guess i should of bought the real ones lol.

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"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."

I haven't seen or heard of any doing that. Been running a pair three years now and they still feel like the day I put 'em on.
You SURE nothing hit it?? They mounted on top of your arms or behind? I got one that a wheel adapter bolt backed out and rubbed nearly 1/4"deep gouge in it and its still ok.

No larry they r on the side and i run 5 1/2 off set wheels they r pretty well hid in the wheel. i called tim at southern buggy and they r going to replace it thank god. i thank it was a bad casting because when i put them on i also put all new lines and when i blead them the 1 that broke would never work like the other side.and the bad 1 kept bleeding black chunks out of it dont know what it was but it was a lot of crap.

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"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."

Dang! Black chunks, that dont sound good at all. Feller cant get a deal on nuthin and not have a problem. I got lucky I guess.

Thats cool Tim is gettin it taken care of, he's the man.

Pipedope had a nice little ride down undefeated over that caliper. Ruined a good day of riding too. I had my own )self inflicted) problems.

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Aut Viam Invenium Aut Faciam!

yea kevin but i still climbed every hill but 1 not real smart i know but its in my blood cant stand to watch.lol

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"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."

are the knock offs black like the real ones? or are they a chrome like color?

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Brandon

Black

yea they r black they work good i think i got a bad one. my luck

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"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."

is that a floating caliper or does it bolt up solid.reason i ask is i was told the that the solid mount calipers we run are bad about breaking.i had never seen one brake under normal conditions and i have been running them for along time under bad conditions even at times with bad wheel bearings and since i was told this i have seen two brake at the bolt flanges on two diffrent buggys and they had brand new stuff.has anybody else heard of this happening.chad

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NOW GAS IT!!!!!

Gasman, Pipedope and I are running stationary calipers, they do not float at all. I am running Wilwoods 4-pistons with 1.75" bore and man it can stop very quick, it sucks that it happened to him, I would say that it was just a bad one out of the bunch of new calipers, there is nothing wrong with the knockoffs at all as long it is a good set. He got lucky that was was able to stop the rail before he went on down over undefeated and it could really get hairy On my old Packrat, I was running Wilwood 2-pistons in the rear and they were stationary as well and never broke one, but broke one off with the caliper mounts with it plum off my trailing arm. These are what I have been running and soon he will too.....http://www.jegs.com/i/Wilwood/950/120-6818/10002/-1 and have been running Wilwoods on the front as well.....http://www.jegs.com/i/Wilwood/950/120-9 ... tId=969810 They are very good set of calipers and I think they are the best in my opinion, they use Wilwoods in every motorsports out there and made a good name for itself. I am not trying to say that the others are JUNK, I am just saying my $0.02 I have never seen or heard what his did, but I have seen one broke plum off of its mounts and it was a floater type.

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"Loud pipes saves lives"

Are you blaming the beer or Ricky?? LOL Had a blast that day

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"Loud pipes saves lives"

hey dope... i've got some seriouse healing time from some cheap ass wilwood calipers. still healing needless to say. climed a short hill got to the top like you did and no brakes... didn't think it was a big deal. started heading back to the truck, when a stick come in on me and couldn't stop b/c i paniced. took my hand off the kill switch to drive and the driving hand to take hold of the stick to push it out of the way when it pushed back. took 9 days to get to the doc b/c the pain wouldn't go away... after some scans and pissing in cups every other day come to find out i had bruised spleen, ribs, and kidneys. it's been over a month now and my back still kills me. don't play with the cheap brakes, and damn sure don't weld ears back on them and think they're going to be o.k.. i thought i was a goner. one more thing NOT to do... buddy of mine at work stripped the banjo bolt hole on his brembo's and installed a helicoil... after he seen i couldn't hardly work for a month now and showed the scar, he's reconcidering. i bitch everyday to him about it and remind him don't go cheap... i notice one guy's motto on here is pay once bitch a little, instead of bitch a lot. i can't type enough to bitch about how wrong you can go just b/c of price on breaks. 5K in buggy and 50$ on brakes... doesn't add up. please be smart and safe or safe and smart!

p.s. i seen old post w/your buggy dope and that thing is sharp! i'm a reader not a poster.

Very sorry for you misfortune steamin, I hope you get well soon. Sounds like a helluva ordeal to go thru.

Wilwoods at $140-$150 a caliper are from cheap ass brakes. The knockoffs aint cheap ass neither, at $80 a caliper. Drag racers been trusting them for years to pull 2400-3000 lb. 200 mph+ 1/4 mile cars down to 10mph in a hundred feet or so. And roundy rounders been using them to get smokin hot lap after lap and still slow a car for multi lap races for just as long. There is no OEM calipers that come close to them, except maybe Brembos from an exotic. He just happened to get a bad knockoff. It could've been the same with a $10,000 airliner brake system or a $19 rebuilt Sentra caliper from Autozone. If you cant trust a Wilwood brake, you cant trust any brake.
What do you suggest as a safer, more reliable or more effective caliper than a Wilwood or Brembo??

SHIT HAPPENS,most of the time jus to me,lol,ive had very good luck out of vw bus front brake calipers,they are big and they solid mount

I had them on my two seater, they worked fine, but nothing like the knockoffs I got now.
Ran Sentras before , too. They also work good, but the pads can fall slick out of them after they get worn down.

larry i have also ran all kinds of brakes but the knock off worked the best so far but i had chad order me a set of real willwoods this time. im going to still run the knock offs on my new 4 seater. i should have some pics of it soon bad ass 4 seater built it this weekend. all yea the real brakes r 125.00 a piece.

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"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."

I tried 2 different caliper setups before going to 4 piston wilwoods. Both previous setups sucked. My wilwoods have been great and i can lock up 2 15.5 inch wide tires on pavement at speed.

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Turbocharged Ecotec,vanogon midshift,Berrien WoodsBuggy wagon.

try that with a set of vargas and you will have to push hard enough to fold the brake pedal in half
I have wilwoods on my heavy four seater (actually its a 3 seater ) and love them .

Also why do some people say that they are going to break because they are not a floating caliper ?

Maybe they dont know how to center a non floater correctly when makin mounts?

Guess they figure a floater will slide on the pins in case of a rotor, wheel or stub breaking, instead of it all just binding up and busting the caliper. I think a good solution to that is lighter weight brake mounts so they bend instead of the caliper. 3/16" tabs are plenty strong and will usually give up before most calipers.

how do you center the caliper so that dont bind or drag?

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Just Stand On It!!!!

Chris

Any and every disc caliper I've ever seen will have a slight amount of contact between rotor and pad even when the brakes arent applied, so eliminating 100% of the drag is not possible that I know of.

To center the calipers, I put a big ziptie around the edge of the rotor to space the caliper up off of it (10 or 12 gauge wire will work too), then just sit the caliper with new pads over the rotor. Adapt from the 1/8" NPT fitting on the caliper to an airline male coupling and hook it up to my air hose to make the pads squeeze the rotor. You could hook up the brake line and have someone apply the brakes, but the air is less mess (especially on new build mockup) and one-manned. Then bolt the tabs ( or whatever shape brackets I have to cut out of 3/16" plate to work) to the caliper. Weld the tabs or brackets I made to the arm, cut the ziptie out and its done. Usually have to pull the calipers back off to finish the welds. Works for floaters and nonfloaters.

There's prolly an easier way, or some way to do it by doing a bunch of measuring and figuring, but this has always worked for me.

thanks kybuggy1

im thinking after reading this post of changing my bolt on bracket and vw calipers for some them there wilwoods and also........... does anybody run those residual pressure valves?

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Just Stand On It!!!!

Chris

I do not run any residual valves, I was told the they maintain a constant 2 psi on your brake lines so your pedals won't have to travel as far, but I don't have that problem with mine as it is. It was also supposed to help keep the fluid in the lines in if your calipers are mounted higher than the master cylinder so the fluid won't bleed itself back into the reservoir. Run 2 psi valves for disc brakes, run 10 psi for drum brakes.

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"Loud pipes saves lives"