jpcdmd

Curious as to what depth the outside of an LS430 front caliper can be shaved down to clear wheels?

I know its not the most ideal way of fitting rims, but mine are already shaved about 1.5-2mm from my old rims and my new rims are barely rubbing - they clear with a 3mm spacer.

Anyone ever taken off up to 4mm of metal with no problems? I really want to get rid of the spacer, unless someone has a couple chrome 20" AC Supremes layin around with +43 high disk. Mine are +38 standard disk.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

you can probably ask rmmgs4 about it. i know he shaved off the caliper on his wife's is300 a bit to make them flat, but not much

and he told me that one member tried to shave, not far before damanging the caliper for good

jpcdmd

OK I want to try and settle this for good. Anyone know of a junkyard that has a stock of Lexus parts? I will buy a junked caliper and take it apart and measure the wall thickness myself.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

www.car-parts.com

and also tapcycle?

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

Contact CL member Aliga, he's got access to that sort of stuff.

J.P.

if you look at an IS 300 caliper, that "hump" on it, we shaved it off for a wheel to fit and my friend has put about 50k hard miles on it

cyclemax

Just curious, what would you consider acceptable wall thickness after machining? Keep in mind that most auto parts today are optimized in design for weight, material savings, etc, so it's highly unlikely that there's much "safe" material to remove. It is possible, however that the casting thickness is greater than needed to meet a minimum reqirement for the casting process itself, but you should be careful. Personally, I'd go with a thin spacer.

If you do find out the thickness, I may be able to have an analysis run for you, based on your proposed machining.

jpcdmd

I've already got a 3mm spacer on there. Given the +38 offset on the wheel, i'd really like to get rid of the spacer.

I don't know what an "acceptable" thickness would be. But I'd be willing to take off a millimeter or two if the wall thickness is upward of 7-8mm or more.

Like I said I've already taken off up to 2mm of metal already, and haven't experienced any problems. I think the worst that could happen would be sudden complete brake failure, most likely only on one side (both sides at one time would be highly coincidental). I think there'd be a slow leak with gradual loss of pressure before a sudden loss would occur, provided there are no visible perforations after shaving.

I think the risk of a sudden unexpected catastrophic disaster or accident is more probable from having a small spacer on there than modifying the caliper. We always hear of wheels falling off, etc. Hell, it happened to me once before. I had an old Volvo with 1/4" spacers on the rear, a tech at a dealer put it on backwards (it could only seat fully on one side) bolted the wheel back on, not fully seated, and the wheel came loose and came off on the road. Luckily, I was only going about 25 mph and the wheel lodged up under the fender.