t2d2

iTrader: (8)

Speaking of which, I received my rebuilt A1 Cardone / Duralast LS calipers on Friday and spent the weekend fixing them up. They arrived much cleaner than your typical used set, but it still required a lot of wire brush scrubbing with brake cleaner, followed by more scrubbing with degreaser to get rid of all the grime and oily residue. They were much more beat up than I expected of a rebuilt set, with lots of dings and a few sizable dents from 15-20 years of rough handling. So, I filed down the high spots and filled the low spots with JB Weld. I filled probably 100 low spots between the two calipers, not exaggerating. I mostly finished sanding the JB Weld down this morning, and my pads arrived this afternoon. Just as well, because I was about ready to start on painting...

I test fitted the pads just for the hell of it, and to my surprise, the guides on one of the four are effed up and none of the pads will fit it. They're pinched in a tiny bit, leaving a gap at the top of each guide. Even if you could force the pad in, it would probably be frozen in place and not work properly. I tried taking the guides out to bend them out to fill out the entire caliper opening, but whatever machine/gorilla put those things together torqued it down so much, that tiny allen bolt has no intention of budging.

I took them back to AutoZone just now to show them all the issues -- including one of the bleeder valve covers being torn -- and had them try loosening the allen bolts to no avail. The manager's response at first glance was, "those are jacked up." They're sending out a replacement set that'll arrive Wednesday, in hopes that I simply received a lousy set the first time. The guys were in agreement that if the replacement set doesn't look significantly better, it may be best to just scrap the purchase. I don't really want to do all that refinishing work again... And with how crazy tight the guides are tightened down, what happens if and when it comes time to service anything on the calipers?

I know AutoZone doesn't have the best of reputations in a lot of places, but the one by me is staffed by really solid "car guys." That said, barring my replacement set of LS calipers being way, way better than this set, I would have to caution against people buying their Cardone rebuilds under the Duralast banner. I bought them under the assumption that a rebuild would ensure better quality than your average used parts. Instead, it seems like they took the worst samples from the scrap pile and did a quick flip.

Edit: I decided to take the caliper apart with the bad guides to see if a better angle of attack would help loosen the little allen bolts -- no luck, they're totally rounded out now and an extractor is their only hope of salvation -- and discovered in the process that the four big bolts that hold the caliper halves together were tightened down so hard, some of the threading was damaged. Two of them required a breaker bar and opposing crow bar (for leverage) just to get started. Even the heads on a couple of the bolts were heavily chewed up, and those are replacement hex bolts in the rebuild, not the torx head or whatever that the LS calipers come with that are a recommended replacement item. Either they used low grade hardware or their torquing practices are way over the top. So, even if the replacement set looks better on the surface, I'm disassembling them at the store to make sure they're not an accident waiting to happen. I'm really questioning the value of a rebuild if you have to check everything they did. This is a most discouraging series of discoveries for what I thought is supposed to be a good rebuilding brand (A1 Cardone).

That would be significantly more reassuring!

Funnyman

I can double check I haven't purchased them from him yet but was planning on it in the next couple of weeks

CatManD3W

iTrader: (18)

If you go with LS400 you NEED LS400 Rotors

If you go with Supra TT you NEED TT Rotors..

They are not interchangeable

Ali SC3

iTrader: (10)

unless you are tracking the car you can just use the factory lines. if you clamp the hose or do it quickly you wont even have to bleed the whole system, i just swapped over the lines quickly and bled the front a little and kept the reservoir full and I was good to go. If you want SS lines though then that would be the time to install them.

ashtray

iTrader: (12)

I went with the TT setup. Going to replace the lines but probably not with stainless steel ones. The purchase has been made.

oldManTan

that's ridiculous, i got a TT caliper from advance auto that looked like it was completely new, even had wax all over it, it was completely flawless. so i guess stay away form autozone calipers.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

I don't know. AutoZone just repackages other stuff under the Duralast brand, usually, and these are A1 Cardone part numbers. (That's how I found them.) Everything I had read about Cardone rebuilds had been good... The condition of the replacement set when they arrive tomorrow will be quite telling! It scares me to think that they're torquing steel bolts into aluminum calipers so tight as to damage the threads on the bolt. That's a major safety equipment failure just waiting to happen, so hopefully it's just the perfect storm of screwed up rebuilding on this set, not a common practice.

p.s. I assume you meant TT caliper, not TT rotor. I made the same mistake in my previous post and had to go back and edit it so I wouldn't confuse people.

oldManTan

yea exactly i meant caliper, edited that just now.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

The replacement set of LS400 calipers came in today. The Right one is in close to what might be considered excellent shape. It should clean up pretty quick and not set me back significantly on the time investment from cleaning up the first set. The Left one, however, was in extremely poor shape -- gouged way worse than the first set and with mismatched halves, one of which looked like it was a casting defect that should have been trashed. So, we're trying again on that one... Their inventory must be full of bad samples on this particular item. The good news is, AutoZone expedites the shipping on stuff to the store, taking only 1-2 days from Tennessee to Oregon.

Also, the same guy was in today and he said it should be no problem returning my old calipers for the $70 core refund.

Edit: Less than 24 hours for the second replacement (#3) Left caliper to arrive! It isn't quite as pristine as Right #2, but plenty good for a used item. Hopefully, I got the bulk of the awful ones out of the inventory rotation for the rest of you...

SSmith

iTrader: (7)

Good luck finding TT calipers at any of the parts stores. Typically what they say is a TT caliper ends up being a NA caliper. Most of the Supra guys would trade in the NA caliper for the TT caliper so there aren't a lot of rebuilds out there. I hunted for rears for months until I went ahead and just bought new from Toyota. I was glad I did when I got them.

Shane

Khiladi

iTrader: (1)

Out of curiousity, how do the Supra N/A brake calipers and rotors stack up? Are they still an improvement from the SC? Cheaper?

1A1

As far as I can remember, they are the same.

Steve

oldManTan

yea finding TT calipers isn't easy, but if you can find it, it's well worth the price. i had to drive 20 miles to an advance auto parts to get one caliper that they had in stock.

KahnBB6

iTrader: (5)

Not exactly the same:

All SC400's and 98-2000 SC300's share the exact same front and rear brakes as 93-98 Supra NA's.

All 92-97 SC300's have smaller front and rear brakes than either of those three models.

SC400/MKIV NA spec brakes provide slightly better braking power but not nearly the same as a 95-00 LS400 front caliper and rotor swap or a TT caliper swap will give you. MKIV NA owners looking for more braking performance do swap their stock brakes for TT or LS400 calipers even with lighter curb weight.

Khiladi

iTrader: (1)

Good info, thanks.