[maninacoupe]

Hey Guys
I have had bad luck with the caddy rear disc brakes on my 34 ford with an eight inch rear. Is there a caliper that will bolt right on to the eci mounting bracket? these are 11" rotors. And I don't care if it has an e-brake.

[maninacoupe]

Has anyone experienced bad luck with these caddy rear brakes? Bleeding,getting the ratchet part to work on e-brake/adjuster, low pedal. I have had these problems. And had it all working and last weekend had the rear jacked up, car running checking trans line pressures in each gear and guess what what? When I hit the brakes, rears did not work. Help me out guys. Someone has bound to have run across another caliper without e-brake that will bolt right up. They are 1977 to 1985 Cadillac Seville and Buick Riviera.

[Triaged]

Every single person I have ever talked to had issues with those type (caliper with integrated e-brake) of calipers.

What is the center to center distance of the mounting holes and the thickness of the rotors? I think they might be the same as "metric" front calipers.

[maninacoupe]

Thanks
I will check that today. I hope you are right. That will be an easy fix if that works. Cheaper caliper to I would think.

[Frisco]

The GM metric calipers will bolt up in place of the Caddy calipers.

No parking brake when using the metric calipers.

The lack of a parking brake is illegal in all states.

Major price difference. About $30 each for the metric compared to $100 each for the Caddy calipers.

To properly adjust the Caddy calipers to function correctly see the attachment below.

Be sure the calipers are installed on the correct sides so that the bleeder valves are 'up'. This is so that they can be 'bled' properly.

Having the emergency brake cable installed and used will keep the Caddy calipers adjusted.

You may need to add a 10 psi residual valve in the rear brake lines. I did. See the article concerning this below.

The pedal ratio is also important. See the article attached below. I used a pedal ratio of 4:1. I used a Corvette type master cylinder with a 1 1/8" bore. This was installed under the floor. It was connected to a 7" dual diaphram power brake booster. I ran a 2psi residual valve in the front brake lines and a 10 psi residual valve in the rear lines. The residual valves should be installed as close to the master cylinder as feasible. I also had a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve in the rear line after the residual valve. The proportioning valve is to 'balance' the braking from front to rear.

Adjusting the rear calipers with the built in parking brake is very time consuming.

I also ran a Lokar floor mounted emergency brake handle. It does not have enough mechanical advantage to actuate the disc brake parking brakes. I ended up fabricating an intermediate link with a 2:1 ratio from the Lokar lever to the rear parking brake cables.

NOTE: Most aftermarket pedal assemblies have a 6:1 ratio and are used with non-power assisted systems. These systems will also use a 1" bore master.

If you use the 6:1 ratio pedals and the 1" bore master with power brakes, the results will be a low pedal and sometimes will also require the brake pedal to be pumped to even get some pedal.