installing caliper dust seals

F

Frogeye

Well-known member
Rebuilding brake calipers, Lockheed. Does anyone have a trick to install the dust seals? Always have problems with the metal ring. Tried freezing but with so little metal as soon as you touch them they warm up. Afraid to heat the caliper too much because to get enough heat in it to expand I'm afraid I'll burn my hands installing. Need a ring compressor! I know some people don't use them but would like to be able to get them on my street Sprite calipers.
 
I've done it on both sprite and mgb calipers and the best trick I've found is to grind the outside lower edge of the shield to get it started in the caliper easier. I think I also use a C-clamp to hold one side of the ring in place while I start the other side.

GOOD LUCK.
 
A royal PITFA. There has to be a way to make an internal press that fits between the caliper faces and pushes the seals in square. Sooner or later I either work through 3-4 sets of seals, or cheat and break the calipers apart so I can press the seals in squarely.
 
If you are using these in a racer, just leave the dust seals off. You'll burn them to a crisp regardless. Jsut make sure you renew the piston seals regularly, at least 1 x year.
 
I made an aluminum cup about 3/4" thick, with a cavity about 1/2" deep and I.D. .002"-.003" larger than the piston, and an O.D. about 1/16" larger than the counter bore for the dust shield.

Using the piston extende(3/8") as a guide, light tapping (plastic hammer) on the back side of the cup usually starts the dust shield squarely.

Never thought of removing any burr, and tapering the lead-in edge. Too obvious, I guess.

RJS
 
On the MGB calipers, I use the previously mentioned method of taking the leading edge off of the O.D. and they usually go in without too much fussing (I only ruin a few seals that way). I wish I had the nice tool that Ron described. Probably don't need the dust seals on a race set-up anyway.
 
I've torn up a couple seals on my Wilwoods from not having dust seals on them. the pistons were pretty and I expected a set of old pads to last the weekend. I wound up changing them Sunday between qual and race, and didn't take the time to scrub the pistons clean. I wound up with a spongy pedal the whole race and almost emptied the master cylinder of fluid before I was done. fortunately I was able to finish the race and got the brake fluid cleaned off the car before it did any damage to the paint.

That said, dust seals are nice to have simply for issues like that. It wouldn't have happened had I taken the time to clean everything during the pad change, but that's not an option sometimes.
 
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