Dan Owens

I have a question concerning a caliper rebuild I'm doing on my 84' Targa. The rebuild went real well and I've got everything reassembled except the dust boots on the rear calipers. The dust boot has an "integrated" clamp ring that holds the boot onto the caliper. The instructions inside the box the parts came with indicate some "special" clamp pliers to install the boot. I've tried pushing and twisting and every thing I can think of to get tha damn boot/ring to slide onto the rim that it mounts on without success. Any tips or ideas here or am I having to find and purchase this special clamp plier to finish this? I've looked through a million posts and haven't seen anything about this clamp plier mentioned anywhere? Help

David Porter

Here's a thread from the Pelican BBS:

<a href="http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59281&highlight=caliper+dust+boot" target="_blank">http://www.pelicanparts.com/cgi-bin/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59281&highlight=caliper+dust+boot</a>

glees

I've just replaced all of mine. I bent a couple of the little tags on the retaining ring very slightly to reduce the force required to push them on. If you bend them too much then the ring will be a loose fit and you'll need to bend them back slightly. Don't be tempted to use anything other than your finger ends to push the dust seal into position. I tried using a block of wood which pinched the seal against the retaining ring, slitting the seal. And guess what, you can't buy the dust seals separately!

Gordon
'86 Carrera.

Tony'z911

Hmmmm, I'm not surprised at all to see this topic back up on the board! I completed this task as well about 2 months ago. The job itself wasn't bad at all and repeating the process in a couple years should be a breeze. It was however extremely frustrating not to have a clue (even after speaking with a few people and a local shop) as to how to get the rear dust covers on. <img src="graemlins/c.gif" border="0" alt="[ouch]" /> I ended up doing what a friend of mine did and just put the covers on as best I could although they were not actually clamped onto the caliper.
I spoke to an instructor w/ an '87 Targa that I know and he said that he has done the same thing with his dust covers in the past while rebuilding his calipers. He said that after a couple track events the dust covers get a bit toasted and it really doesn't matter anyway.
I hope this is the case since mine are basically just sitting there. I checked them after a few days of driving and they hadn't moved, although I haven't peeked at them since being on the track for a weekend.
-T