280mm caliper brackets SUSPECT!!!

well as some of you know i fitted my 280mm brakes to my mk1 golf on sunday

they came to me like this. brand new hubs, wheel bearings, discs, pads, calipers and the caliper extension bracket. fully built up out the box



pic after i fitted them on saturday



well anyway i've done about 40 miles max since sunday, drove back from heywood to my house (20 miles) and to work and back since monday.

Driving back from work today, just come off the motorway onto a dual carrigeway about 2 minutes from home when the sound of a bolt twatting some metal happens and an almighty knocking happens, so i pull over calmly into the bus stop without braking as i only doing about 20mph when this happened. Once i got into the bus stop the o/s wheel was seized up to fuck and the car just stopped straight away

jacked up the wheel to find to my dismay that one of the caliper extension bracket bolts had either come loose or sheered out of the mounting and my caliper was hanging by only one bolt.




it had essentially cheesewedged itself against the brake disc and my alloy wheel busting the bleed nipple in the process and scratching up the nice new calipers.

i tried to find the bolt in vain, but i managed to take some pictures, you can see the missing bolt, and the bolt thats holding the bracket to the caliper is also coming losoe.

These bolts were torque wrenched tight when fitted to the car but needed no real tightening as they were proper tight out of the box.

I either suspect that they were hi-tensile bolts used or they werent held in with loctite when originally fitted by the company who sold them to me, surely these bolts shouldn't come loose and disappear completely after only 40 miles of driving.

I'm not impressed in the slightest and the fact that after only 40 miles this has happened, how the hell am i meant to put my faith in these brackets indefinatly, as i had planned on keeping these on the car for as long as she lived. I mean imagine if that had happened round a roundabout or when i was doing an emergency stop.

anyone else had similar problems, or are you still running your 280mm brakes years on with no problems?

I wonder how many people are going to whip their wheels off in the morning and check how tight the bolts are!

lucky boy

Lucky escape friend .

I do remember the old TSR tuning firm had a brake conversion kit that was dealer fit only . In case any one fitted them incorrectly ! What did the instructions say about bolts ? Who supplied them ?

were no instructions are it was two pre-built packages. so it was a hub off/hub on operation..

supplied by gtisvw on ebay

they sell brackets seperately aswell…

just had a gander on tsr's site earlier… they show a picture of thier brake conversion kit for 279 quid, shows a nice shot of the whole package including you guessed it… loctite!

the vital missing ingredient.

these guys one ebay reckon they've knocked out hundred of these with no problems, so either someone forgot to loctite these or every single product they have sold have been plagued with problems just waiting to go off…

I've seen the results of these mishaps at work on occasions and it really ain't a pretty sight bruv!  8O Belive me, you are one lucky bunny this week!! Don't suppsoe ya fancy pickin me a few numbers for Saturdays draw do ya? :wink:

g60jonny said

I've seen the results of these mishaps at work on occasions and it really ain't a pretty sight bruv!  8O Belive me, you are one lucky bunny this week!! Don't suppsoe ya fancy pickin me a few numbers for Saturdays draw do ya? :wink:

il have some of that action bruv, came yousaf get picking

haha, please mate tell me whats happened, all the ammo i can use against this guy is gold cos im gonna ring him tomorrow.

right ready for it

2, 12, 21, 43, 34, 38

is that enough numbers? hahhahaa

it looks like acase of you were lucky,  no dage done, locktite

well i need to get the right sized bolt, so i need to wait for the guy to send it as i have no transport… ill fucking make him chuck in some loctite the shy bastard, and im gonna try and blag another caliper from him

guess its the bus to work tomorrow

BFH mate

foxymk1 said

BFH mate

who did what now?

bus fare home
B,F,H

I'm confused by those brackets….

The normal carriers have a plain hole, the hub is threaded.  So the bolt torques by pulling the two together. (All std Cap Head Socket Screws are high tensile).

How do your brackets mount to the hub?   Have the threads in the hub mounting holes been drilled out?  If not then the design is completely screwed, torqueing the bolt will just tighten the head against the hub, not tighten the bracket to the hub.

from that TSR image it looks like they bolt to the hub differently from yours, they use countersunk bolts to bolt into the thread of the hub from the disc side which makes more sense.  Countersunk into the bracket to clear the disc once on.

On another note, there should be no need to loctite them, carrier bolts aren't loctited as std.  The torque should take care of that.  If they are torqued, the only thing I can think of is false torqueing, from either, crap liquids, grease etc in the threads, or incorrectly formed threads in the Bracket.  As you said though, all new parts and you did check em, so don;t know whats goen wrong there

good luck with sorting it out thou mate, that must have been a shock!  well annoying when you've forked out for new hubs all set up already for you
 

hi manic, cheers bud,

it is rather annoying but hey shit happens, at least nowt bad happened to the car bar a broken nipple

im pretty positive the hubs have been drilled out, i will check it tomorrow before i go to work and get back to you on that one…

if it is a flaw in the design i can let the guy know when i speak to him…

heres what i said to him and what i got back…

oh and on your point of the tsr upgrade brackets, someone on ed38 actually mentioned that the reckon the bracket looks like its mounted incorrectly as it gives very little disc clearance.

its a bit dodgy too that if it is a design defect that the chap claims to have sold 100s of these units…

my email to him :-

Hi mate,
i recently purchased a 280mm brake upgrade for my mk1 golf from yourself, i got round to fitting at the weekend and i was wholly impressed with package…
HOWEVER
i left work at 5pm today and have only just got back in now at 7.30pm… i only live 10 minutes away from work…
I have driven a total of 40 miles since fitting your brakes and had one of the bolts either come loose or sheer off the caliper extension bracket.
This caused the caliper to come loose against the wheel and smack the inside of the alloy, causing the bleed nipple to bend and snap.
The caliper wedged itself against my wheel and caused the wheel to lock up and with no braking on that wheel i simply had to roll to a very noisy and bumpy stop…
frankly i am appalled that after 40 miles the bolts could have come loose. It makes me think these are not actually hi-tensile bolts designed for the job.
Can you please provide a phone number i can ring you on or call me on 07********
Thanks in advance.

His reply back -
hi yes they are high tensile bolts and it has sheared from being over tightend you can give me a ring in work on 01656 6***** i would just like to ad that we have sold hundreds of these kits and this is the first one we have had a problem with


will ring him tomorrow and kick up some beef

I think the high tensile bolt issue is a red herring, they are cap head socket screws, so by default are high tensile.  

I thought the bolt is missing?  If sheared you'd have the stub of it still in the bracket.

BFH, havent heard that one before  

ManicGTI said

I'm confused by those brackets….

The normal carriers have a plain hole, the hub is threaded.  So the bolt torques by pulling the two together. (All std Cap Head Socket Screws are high tensile).

How do your brackets mount to the hub?   Have the threads in the hub mounting holes been drilled out?  If not then the design is completely screwed, torqueing the bolt will just tighten the head against the hub, not tighten the bracket to the hub.

 

Spot on there mate.

What material are the brackets? They look like Aluminium, if they are they could be partially to blame as heat would cause different rates of expansion, potentially loosening the bolt.