Caliper to swivel axle spacer??

So I'm back to my front suspension rebuild after taking a few months off. I took off the entire front suspension, dropped the crossmember and reinstalled with new pads, replaced the kingpins, installed new hub bearings, etc. When I went to reattach the brake calipers to the swivel axles, I encountered a problem, though. It appears that the calipers are too far out (ie driver's side caliper is too far to the left) so that the caliper itself is hitting the rotor, even without brake pads installed. It appears that they are about 1/4" off. I'm pretty sure that I have the rotor on and shimmed correctly. Don't think it could be off by 1/4 in any case.

I don't recall, and I don't see any spacers in the diagrams I've seen.

What am I doing wrong??

How about a picture.

Do you have the left hand caliper on the left hand side, etc.?

We had one of these a while ago.

As I remember, he installed the grease seal backwards on the bearing. Kicks the disc out a quarter inch or so.

The oil seal collar? Its conical in shape, first part that goes on the stub axle.
RS

X2 for Rob.

Herb

Here's a photo. Will assemble other side this morning and see what happens.

I am having a hard time "picturing the picture" because it is sideways. But if that is the driver side, and the left side of the picture is the front, then this caliper is exactly opposite of my driver's side caliper. On mine, the bleed nipple is towards the back of the car, not the front. Therefore, I think your's is on the wrong side (assuming we have the same type of calipers).

I installed a brand new set of calipers that I got from either VB, Moss, or whatever. But I think it matched up exactly with regard to location of the hose and nipple.

Bottom line: there is no spacer between the caliper and the swivel arm. Therefore, they are either mismatched right to left, or something is amiss in the reinstallation of the brake rotor.

Allen -- sorry my picture mixed you up. It was taken with an iPad which seems to assume that everyone can simply rotate their screens 90 degrees to see pictures. The left side is the top.

Anyhow, you all were right - it was an issue with installation of the oil seal collar, which is now correctly installed and the brake caliper sits correctly.

Thank you for the help, and this leads to my second (third?) question. I've read through the discussion of shims vs. no shims for the wheel bearings and have decided to use the shims that were in the hubs from before I removed them. John Twist says that one can simply re-use these, and that they are .003. My caliper (harbor freight, so perhaps inaccurate) measures them as .005.

So, I put everything back together, torqued the nut to ~70 ft/lbs, then backed off to the nearest flat so that I could install the cotter pin. The torque at this point is around 40 ft/lbs. The rotor turns, a but tightly, and I can't feel any free play in it. That is, the end float, if there is any, is miniscule. Is this the correct?

The rotor should spin freely, if it's tight then you probably need another .003 shim.

I suggest you watch the video again BTW as JT definitely does not say that they are .003 thou ;)

There are actually various thickness' of shims available not just .003". At this level you need a micrometer to measure accurately but you can see and feel the differences in thickness - it's quite obvious. IMO don't compare one side with the other - not all stubs are the same. To get a truely accurate reading of endfloat you need a gauge but 'feel' is a good substitute. The whole should spin fairly freely perhaps a little drag. It's not the torque of the nut that determines the freeness. Don't forget that there's a horizontal and vertical option for the split pin, the splitting of which should be the second last thing you do and only after your completely satisfied - the last thing is the grease cap with the stud suitably modified for easy removal - I've jammed a nut just on the start so I can grab that with pliers. Now all these comments are made by one who is not a mechanic (but has been supervised by a master mechanic as I put it back together)so others with greater knowledge.....

I bought a dial indicator because that's just how I roll. However, you can get by without one. As noted earlier, at 40 ft/lb of torque, the wheel should still rotate freely. Otherwise, as the thing warms up you will have increased bearing wear and potential failure.

When you wiggle the rotor in and out from the 3 and 9 o'clock positions (or any other opposite sides) you should have very slight play. This is what you measure. Many measure by feel. Others use a dial indicator. (edit).

Just add shims until you get the right amount of play (end float). Moss sells a shim kit - about 10 bucks if I remember right. Using the old shims is fine, but may or may not be enough (or too much) to get it to the right setting with the new bearings, etc.

I assume you packed the bearings well with grease.

Replace micrometer with dial indicator. Thanks.

But as I think about it, I'll bet I could figure out a way to measure using the micrometer.

Thirty thou would be .030 ;)

Ah, I see

0.1 = one tenth
0.01 = one one hundredth
0.001 = one thousandth
0.0001 = one ten thousandth

I was thinking that thirty thou meant 1/30,000, which would be .00003. But it is 30 x one thousandth, which is 30x.001 = .03

Thanks for the math lesson.

Pauls article is good, note the table on the various stacks of shims that let you step up in 0.001 increments
http://www.mgb-stuff.org.uk/suspensiontext.htm#endfloathow

I don't have a dial gauge so I more or less stepped down in thickness until the wheel would just start to bind as I torqued it to 40. Then I went back up one step of 0.001 so it would spin freely after torquing.
Note the phrase "Start to bind". Don't torque it all the way until the end.
Feel it, spin the wheel as you tighten the nut. The moment it starts binding back off and go up in thickness. You can obviously speed the process by taking a few iterative guesses either side of "too thick, too thin" and zero in quite quickly on the end point of "just binding plus 0.003" (edit) " Thats 0.001 plus 0.002
First wheel took 30 minutes, 2nd wheel took 10 minutes.

Peter you must have been working on my car - that's the same procedure for me even the timing!


FWIW slipping the shims on the stub axle is 'tricky' because there's not alot of room in there. I found a smear of grease would stick shims together and I used a magnetic-fastner-picker-upper to place them on the stub and a small screwdriver pushed against them lets me release the magnet