brownRock

I ordered rebuilt (front) calipers online. Just received them only to discover that they are calipers for a 12A NOT 13B despite vendor's assurances they were 13B calipers.

Because of prohibitive shipping costs I have to look at options that will minimize costs of fixing this problem and need some help.

1) Can I install the new 12A calipers on the old brackets i.e. are the calipers for the 12A and 13B the same? The bore seems to be the same as well as the port size. what about slider pins matching the caliper openings and dust boots? This would seem to be the simplest and most cost effective way of doing it provided the parts fit.

2) Use the rebuilt calipers (they bolt on ok) and buy some 12A pads. This idea seems to hold more unknowns than 1). Possible issues include differences in rotor thickness between 12A and 13B. Performance issues (some 12A pads are for non fuel injected while other pads are strictly for 13B fuel injected). Would it take organic, metallic, semi metallic, ceramic?

Can anyone help me figure out what to do? Hope so. Thanks guys.

misterstyx69

iTrader: (142)

The 12A and 13b are engines,so you would refer to the year of the car rather than the engine.
There are Parts manuals online that you can access,and a good one is Foxed.ca .
Take the old caliper and compare it to the new one.If it matches up try it.If the part number in the manual matches to the new one,then by rights they should be correct.
Don't forget to drop by the CDN section and say HI!

brownRock

Thanks.

Your suggestion of comparing the 2 calipers is of course the way to go.

Unfortunately I can't compare them because I already sent the old ones back. For a change I did things promptly and now I have to live with the consequences of not procrastinating returning the cores.

Thanks for the links to the manuals.

There seems to be only one caliper for the 84 FB and the fact that the there is only one bore size listed and that the mounting holes line up is probably a good sign.

I think I'll ask the supplier to send me back the mounting brackets and see if I can mount the rebuilt calipers on the old brackets.

If anyone has experience in this area and knows any reason this is a bad idea or won't work for whatever reason I'd love to hear from them.

I'm just getting around to doing some restoration work on my FB which I've had since 84. mileage is 110M K with the usual idle issues (surging) plus rust in the rear wheel wells. Dealing with all of these things will give me something to do over the winter.

Just finished chopping my 83 Kawi and need a new and bigger challenge. My FB should do the trick.

I will drop by the CDN section and say hi.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

Fairly sure there are only two caliper styles for the 1st gen. The SA style, and the FB style.

brownRock

Thanks Aaron,

Are they 'visibly' different or are they more or less the same with minor differences?

I looked up the part in the 79-80 parts catalog and it looks pretty much like the one in the 85 catalog (I'm not sure whether same D code means the parts are the same or not). The actual part numbers are different.

Clearly there is a difference between the 12A and 13B caliber assemblies. The question is whether the difference is in the brackets only (the 13B takes a bigger different shaped pad from the 12A) or whether there is also a difference in the caliper. If there's a dif in the calipers it's not in the bore or port size so it would like be in the size and dimensions.

Looking a photos I was able to find of the calipers I gotta say they look pretty much the same.

RockAuto shows 2 different looking calipers for the 79 model year. One caliper is the same as the one listed for 84. the other caliper looks noticeable different, in fact very similar the the caliper that went on the Ford Courier. Maybe that's the SA caliper.