Wilwood Rear Parking Brake / IRS...I'm Stumped

[karlos]

Hoping one of you has seen this before. Wilwood brake kit with the old style IRS. Started to route the rear flex hoses and ran into the problem shown below. The parking brake cable attach point interferes with the port for the banjo fitting. Simply no way the fitting plus the banjo bolt will go in there. In looking at the parking brake mechanism more closely, it doesn't look like the Wilwood instruction sheet nor any of the photos I've been able to find online.

Wilwood instruction sheet. Note the orientation of the parking brake cable attach points.

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=51113&d=1456682539

Photo of someone else's installation. Matches the Wilwood diagram.

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=51112&d=1456682167

My installation. Note the odd orientation of the parking brake cable attach brackets.

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=51110&d=1456682046

My installation from a different angle. Note the cable attach point right on top of the port for the banjo fitting (port has the yellow plug in it).

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=51111&d=1456682047

Another view of the port for the banjo fitting. Kinda fuzzy but you get the idea.

http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=51114&d=1456683963



If you look closely at the second-to-the-last photo you can see the parking brake bracket is stamped with an 'R', and the photo is of the right side. So I don't believe I have the calipers swapped or anything. Hoping I'm just missing something simple, but it looks to me like these calipers were assembled with the wrong parking brake brackets. Anyone see something I'm missing?

[carlewms]

Karlos,

I have a Mk 4 with the old IRS and the wilwood rear brakes. I looked at mine and it looks more your friends. I did not use banjo fittings and went straight in from the bottom.

I would call wilwood directly.

Carl

[karlos]

Thank you for your response and in particular for the photo you posted (not sure what happened to it – gone now?). I think I now have an understanding of what’s going on and it was the photo that put the puzzle pieces together for me.

Your photo was taken from the rear of the right side. It shows two important things: the caliper part number, and the fact that the parking brake cable attaches to the rear of the caliper.

Your part number is 10112. Mine is 10113-6. I called and spoke to Wilwood and was told that 10112 calipers are left-hand mount and 10113 calipers are right-hand mount. So your 10112 is a left side caliper mounted on the right side of the car. I suspect this was done in order to get the cable attach points at the rear of the caliper. If the calipers were mounted on the left and right sides as intended the cables would have to attach to the front of the caliper.

So that explains part of what I’m seeing. But I’ve still got the cable attach brackets clocked in a way that covers up the inlet port. The explanation for that is the -6 in the caliper part number. I’m told that means the cable attach points are oriented in the 6-o’clock position out of the box. And sure enough that’s where mine are. Not sure how I ended up with the -6s. Clearly the wrong orientation for the roadster. It’s even less clear how the caliper can be used in this configuration, as the inlet port is blocked by the parking brake cable hardware.

So the fix is to reorient (rotate) the parking brake hardware into the correct position (about 12-o’clock, I believe) and to swap the calipers side-to-side.

Is it common knowledge that the left and right calipers need to be installed on the opposite side of the vehicle? Maybe it is and I missed it, but I’ve seen no reference to it. And neither FF nor Wilwood said anything about it. No big deal, I suppose. A little more brain damage will hardly be noticeable.

Hope this helps someone else out there…

[Al_C]

Karlos, I have the same issue. What I have heard was not that the calipers get mounted on the opposite side, but that you should rotate the e-brake bracket. I took the right caliper off the car and you can see the bracket here: http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=52484&d=1459974116

The question I have is do I only move the allen head machine bolt or loosen the hex nut, too? Here's another angle of the same caliper with the allen head bolt loosened: http://thefactoryfiveforum.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=52486&d=1459974144

I emailed Wilwood and described the problem - the response was "that's exactly how you do it." Not completely clear, but I guess I loosen the hex nut, too and then rotate the entire bracket. Have you tried that? Is there a torque spec for that nut? Anyone else dealt with this?

[michael everson]

Yes. You need to remove and rotate the bracket. I just did this on my last 2 builds. Use two screw drivers to pry off the bracket once the bolt is removed.
This is how Wilwood told me to do it.
Mike

[karlos]

Hope you got it resolved. When I spoke with the Wilwood tech support people the answers they gave were cryptic at best. Since I don't believe the -6s are the right application for the roadster, and since Wilwood couldn't clearly describe how to modify them to make them work, I swapped them for a pair of 10112/10113s. I had to switch the left and right sides but other than that they bolted up with no issues.