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Old 07-14-2020, 11:04 AM
lucky1 lucky1 is offline
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Default Wheel clearance question.

When checking wheel fit, is there a minimum space needed between the wheel and the brake caliper ?

Or as long as it clears with no contact it’s good ?

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Old 07-14-2020, 11:32 AM
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ZeGermanHam ZeGermanHam is offline
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Generally speaking, as long as there's no contact, you're good. I spend a lot of time at the race track with sports cars, where you will see many cars with big brakes where the caliper is less than 1/8" from very expensive wheels.

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Old 07-14-2020, 12:03 PM
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You need to confirm clearance with the caliper fitted with new pads or you could have issues!

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Old 07-14-2020, 03:25 PM
JLMounce JLMounce is offline
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Generally speaking for the types of systems you see in typical use for conversions on these old cars, if the caliper clears the wheel hoop, you're good.

Most often it's an issue of the back of the caliper contacting the hoop in some fashion. This is most common because we typically see 14 and 15" wheels in use on these older cars. I had a set of Slot Mags with a 14" wheel up front that would not fit after converting the fronts to disc using MP Brakes stock type conversion. That said, the wheels could have been made to fit with some grinding on the back of the caliper.

Another area that is a bit more rare and you won't typically find it an issue with stock type conversions is the clearance between the front of the caliper and the wheels spokes. More often than not, the only time this is going to come into play is with big brake conversions that utilize very large calipers. If you have a reverse concave wheel, there might also be some concern there, but again that's not really typical.

The last area for concern would be if you have a floating caliper as it will physical move forward and aft on the disc surface. If the wheel spokes are close to the face of that caliper you could run into clearance issues. The majority of conversion kits on the market use GM based fixed calipers however.

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Old 07-15-2020, 01:34 PM
76TA462 76TA462 is offline
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This might not apply. I recently converted to Wilwood 4 piston on the rear with 18-inch wheels. For clearance from wheel hoop to caliper, any clearance would have been fine. By chance I ended with lots. However, what came as a surprise (not thought about during the parts buying) was clearance between the side of the shock on the driver side, and the back of the caliper. And moreso the brake line fitting. I also converted the suspension at the same time, and used Fox shock absorbers which have the thin exposed piston rod on the lower half. That worked. BUT, the OEM shock I had on before that has a protective sleeve (or tube, not sure what it’s called). That larger diameter would not have cleared the caliper fittings. I got lucky only by chance.

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