Wilwood front brakes issues

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TwistedMatt

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Hey guys,
About three years ago I got a full front disk brake setup for my 1967 Dart GT convertible from wilwood disk brakes. The brakes work relatively well when they decide to work, but that's only about 3/4 of the time. I'm used to the pressure needed for manual brakes at this point, as I've been driving the car for the past three years, however some problems have begun to arise as I drive the car more to the point that I'm going to have to rebuild the whole system. I didn't have the instructions when I built the brakes, which was alright since my buddy is pretty good with disk brakes and he put together one side and I did the other. But apparently I didn't tighten one of the bracket bolts down all the way and it backed itself out into the rotor, which ate the whole bolt away, bent the caliper bracket and shaved a pretty sizeable chunk out of the face of the caliper. The caliper is fine in my opinion since the metal that was shaved away was just the meat of the caliper, and it didn't get to any of the actual parts inside, but I did have to replace the bracket, rotor, and all of the hardware. This time I made sure it was torqued down really hard and locktighted as well as the other side. That's not the problem that I have thought. The problem is that the caliper does not sit on the rotor so that the face sits flush or behind the wheel mounting surface. I'm pretty sure that this has to do with the way I spaced out the shims on the bracket, but I have been having the problem for three years now and it's starting to get a little impossible to find wheels that will fit with the way the caliper sits. I'm going to take both sides apart and rebuild them to see if following the directions helps :evil3: My question is if anyone has had a problem like this on their a-body with any brakes, especially wilwoods. Thanks for the responses, and sorry for the long post.
 

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Are the pads all wearing at about the same rate? And wearing evenly;side to side and front to back?
Ima guessing your brakes are power assisted with the power assist that is occasional?
 
I don't have power brakes if that's what you mean. No booster or anything. I have a dual reservoir and new lines with all newer suspension except for lower control arms. I have not compared the wear of the pads yet. But to be honest, I don't know much about how the hydraulics of the system works, so if you can have power assist without a booster of some sort, then I may. But I'm pretty sure I don't.
 
Allrighty then; what do you mean that they only work 3/4 of the time? Does that mean that 1/4 of the time you are smashing into things?

Disc brakes require a lot more leg power to affect a stop than do drums. This is because drums are self energizing. Personally, I would not own an A-body disc brake car without a booster.
 
What part # is that. I have never seen a rotor mount to the hub like that. Looks like its on backwards in the picture? We use Wilwood in my shop on most all our builds and have never had 1 problem with stopping when the pads are bedded in.
 
It's entirely possible that they're on backwards. I should have been clearer when I said they only work 3/4 of the time. By that I meant that they cause some sort of problem (usually some scraping noise or slight dragging the other 1/4 of the time, but I have not been driving this car regularly starting about four months ago because it started seeping radiator and power steering fluid, which I fixed. On the subject of power brakes, I only know two people who have power brake a bodies and one of them got so tired of the inconsistency in the system that he just took the booster off and they work a lot better and more consistently now. I drive a slant six, and I'm not sure where the vacuum comes from for the booster, but I don't think I'd want to take any power away from the motor. Or add more variables to **** up somehow right now until I get everything else on the car in a solid place where I can start doing all the aesthetics and comfort projects. I've been driving the car with manual brakes for three years and have never had issues with leg power. Like I said, I need to go back and redo the whole brake system piece by piece according to the official direction packet.
 
prrc said:
What part # is that. I have never seen a rotor mount to the hub like that. Looks like its on backwards in the picture?
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I second. I'll make my way out to the shop tomorrow and try to take a look and some pics, but yeah I remember initially putting mine together backwards at first before I read the instructions (which was a pain because I used both loctite and safety wire). You can download instructions for the new kits off of wilwood's website, but if you have the older kit then I can probably find some for you (I have an older kit).

That being said, I'm running 18s so I probably wouldn't notice if my calipers stuck out past my rotors.
 
AJ/FormS said:
Disc brakes require a lot more leg power to affect a stop than do drums. This is because drums are self energizing. Personally, I would not own an A-body disc brake car without a booster.
Click to expand...

This is only true if your system is improperly set up. A system with the proper master cylinder bore diameter and pedal ratio will require minimal effort to stop with no booster. My Valiant with manual Wilwoods stops on a dime and feels like power brakes. I have a friend that runs a road race car at 160+ mph with manual 6-piston Wilwoods and it stops faster than virtually any street car will with minimal effort.
 
Here we go again............
See, I was talking bout A GIVEN SYSTEM with and without a booster. Of course you can muck about changing things and get a different balance. Even the factory did that.What you cannot do is ignore the fact that a drum brake system is self-energizing, and that this characteristic contributes to the stopping effort via a lesser leg power requirement.

It's kinda like taking the P/S belt off. The P/S box has a different ratio than the standard box, and this makes steering a P/S box without a belt very difficult.
The same goes with a factory PDB equipped A-body. The cylinder bore ratios, and occasionally the pedal ratios are different. So go out and defeat the booster on your FACTORY PDB A-Body, and compare the results. It is especially noticeable on the Heavier later year and model Darts, which could be 600 to 800 pounds heavier than the early As depending on how they were equipped and even more if loaded. It's not hard to get a 75up Dart to tickle 4000pounds for a roadtrip. Whereas a 64 Barracuda slanty/Tree speed might be down around 2600 or less. Totally different braking requirements. In Canada, after 1973 all V-8 A-bodies came standard with PDB. And it wasn't because they were all being bought up by weak-legged grannies.....
I see no validity comparing a 6-piston 160mph custom-engineered fat-tired racing braking system to a slanty 67 Dart GT convertible street car.

Merry Christmas!
 
Okay AJ, I see your points, which are valid, but that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about here. We're talking about a 4 piston wilwood performance street brake system meant for much heavier driving than I use them for. But thank you for your input.
 
I had a similar problem with my street rod. The bolt (with lock tight) backed out. I found that this caused the spindle to bend slightly. I had to drill the head of the bolts and wire them.

Hope you get it fixed.
Bob
 
I switched from factory manual drums to Wilwood disc up front still manaul..car stops with little effort from my leg...
 
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