Suzuki Club UK

ahh classic with the washer jets! i did that yesterday with some metal brackets then i thought nah it will be allright for the otherside!

Love it. Classic booze and mechanics! Its a great combo!

Yesterday I nearly got heatstroke trying to work on the SJ. I got the pistons out of the rear calipers using a compressor and an adapter made from a bleed valve (ground it down a bit). Pistons pitted to hell again! Ho-hum. So I tried to get the pistons out of my spares (which had decent boots, even fi they're a rusty mess, so was hoping to find the pistons useable) - nerp, not coming out. Damaged the surface of the piston trying to get it out with grips.

So I went inside and just ordered a new set from brakes international. Went back out and fitted one out of 4 wheel arch extensions, and had to go inside because of the freakin' heat - I screwed the second one up pretty badly because of the heat, so I've taken it off and I'll try again once it cools down a touch.

Ok, the parts came - and I have the wrong Tokico calipers.

I have 5 door vit calipers (53mm) when I need 3 door vit calipers (48.1mm).

So I've ordered the right calipers from ebay. I'm such an idiot.

In that case so am I Anton, I order the wrong parts all the bloody time!

I think I'm going to fit the grand vitara calipers on the front, and fit the standard vitara calipers on the back. I did the maths, and turns out that if I put the 53mm's on the front, and 48mm's on the back, I should end up with the same brake balance as a standard sj 413 with 51 fronts and 44 millimetre (2x22mm). drums on the back. I might need to get a grand vitara master cylinder though.

I will re-check my maths just be sure.

This does mean that I have to junk the 51mm aisin calipers I just rebuilt and painted. I've got a brand new pistons, bleed valves, brake pads and retention clips. I suppose I could always just ebay them off...

Remember if you run GV calipers then you'll need to also run 16" wheels.

Scottie - I *think* that's the GV 57mm calipers for the vented discs - I've had these 53mm's on with 15's and they seemed to fit ok.

According to brakes international, the 53mm's are for solid discs, not the vented ones.

Just as I start thinking I know about the flipping things, I go and prove myself wrong buy buying the wrong calipers. So I'm all set for something to bite me in the ass again.

My bad, didn't realise that there where two sizes on the GVs, I presume the small ones are off a 1.6 though.

I'm not sure if the 1.6 GV runs a different master cylinder/servo but if they runt he same one as the 2.0l they have a HUGE servo, that I think you'll struggle to fit in an SJ, not sure if the master cylinder is compatible with the smaller SJ/vit servo?

ScottieJ wrote:My bad, didn't realise that there where two sizes on the GVs, I presume the small ones are off a 1.6 though.

I'm not sure if the 1.6 GV runs a different master cylinder/servo but if they runt he same one as the 2.0l they have a HUGE servo, that I think you'll struggle to fit in an SJ, not sure if the master cylinder is compatible with the smaller SJ/vit servo?

Yes, the 53mm's are fitted (or *were*) to the 5dr 1.6 vitaras. The 48mm's and 48.1mm's to the 1.6 3dr, and the 57mm's to v6's and 2.0's etc. Or so it seems (I'm quite prepared to be told I have that wrong).

As for the servo, I am going to see how it works with the standard one (I'm upping brake piston area by 14%) before deciding what to do. I may just need to swap in the master cylinder from the vit 5dr. I may need the servo, master cylinder etc from a gv2000. I'll suck it and see.

:-D