Porsche 944 brakes on a late bay Type 2

[qaxa]

Any guidance on how to install 944 single pot brakes on a late bay bus?

I've got all the bits and bobs i.e. spindles, hubs, calipers, discs out of an early 944.

I've tried searching here and from various other resources to no avail. Some say that the hubs should fit late bay spindles directly and some say they don't? Real world experience & guidance would be greatly appreciated!

[Jadewombat]

No real experience with that setup, but the best way is to pull on of the front wheels and rotor off the bus and start measuring ID's of the 944 and bus rotor wheel bearings, then go from there. Once the 944 rotor is mounted on the bay spindle (by machining the correct bearing to fit), you just hang the 944 caliper on the rotor and figure a way to pressurize the caliper ever so slightly to center it, then determine the dimensions of making an adapter of 944 caliper bolt holes to spindle caliper bolt holes.

The rear setup though...same idea but more involved because you need to make an inner plate out of 1/4" steel or so to bracket the rear calipers to.

If I may, why though? At least on the front the late bay, early vanagon calipers were pretty stout. 944 vented rotors are of course "better", but stopping that much better than late bay stuff? Debatable. Do they look cooler though slots in aftermarket or Porsche rims? Also debatable.

Rear disks though, yeah I think they're worth the time and effort and plan to do a set on the rear of my bus.

[qaxa]

I just have a couple of 944 brakes and wheels lying around in the garage and I was wondering what to do with them.

Now I've done a bit of more researching and it appears that 944 brakes may not be the right / smartest of choices around - like Jadewombat also indicated. Perhaps the move to do is to keep the stock brakes up front and build disc brakes in the rear by using mercedes 190 / Audi discs and for example opel astra calipers? Then I won't get 5x130 bolt pattern but that's not too big of a deal as such. 5x112 is better from wheel choice point of view.

Suggestions on the rear set-up are more than welcome!

[Jadewombat]

You read my mind. I will be going the same route with my bus when I have a few Sundays and some change laying around. I have '75 disk brakes up front and bay drums on the rear of my bus currently. I have it planned out in my head, but that's about it for now.

Remove rear drums, shoes, and backing plates.

-190E front vented rotors hung on the bay bus hubs and the lugs tightened down
-Take a pair of Mazda RX-7 Turbo II rear calipers (these were all I could find with the external lever for the e-brake cable wide enough to fit on a 22??mm vented rotor) OR aftermarket rear calipers that will fit over those vented rotors and have the external cable arm
-Make adapter plates out of 1/4" steel for the calipers and something to hold the e-brake cable
-Buy or make adapter for hydraulic lines or custom hydraulic hoses to cross over from the Euro bubble fitting to the Japanese ones

And with too much time on our hands...eventually have some slots cut in the front rotors for venting (made a big difference on my old Golf and years later changing out the drilled rotors on my Audi for slotted ones----waaaaay less brake dust and squeaks after that).

[Piledriver]

Late mustang GT rears are 24mm and have a compatible parking brake setup. M10x1.0 IIRC.
45mm piston floater.

The /4 and /6 cars are same setup but with .5" rotor width, would be easy to make a bit wider.
Also partially aluminum calipers, a bit lighter.

Dead Mustangs populate junkyards in herds.

I have a set of each type I didn't end up using. Yet.

[qaxa]

You read my mind. I will be going the same route with my bus when I have a few Sundays and some change laying around. I have '75 disk brakes up front and bay drums on the rear of my bus currently. I have it planned out in my head, but that's about it for now.

Remove rear drums, shoes, and backing plates.

-190E front vented rotors hung on the bay bus hubs and the lugs tightened down
-Take a pair of Mazda RX-7 Turbo II rear calipers (these were all I could find with the external lever for the e-brake cable wide enough to fit on a 22??mm vented rotor) OR aftermarket rear calipers that will fit over those vented rotors and have the external cable arm
-Make adapter plates out of 1/4" steel for the calipers and something to hold the e-brake cable
-Buy or make adapter for hydraulic lines or custom hydraulic hoses to cross over from the Euro bubble fitting to the Japanese ones

And with too much time on our hands...eventually have some slots cut in the front rotors for venting (made a big difference on my old Golf and years later changing out the drilled rotors on my Audi for slotted ones----waaaaay less brake dust and squeaks after that).

Which MB 190E front rotors are suitable for this or are they all the same across the range?

[Jadewombat]

Late 80s, '89 or so I seem to remember. I don't know if there was a difference between the 2.3 and 2.6 models, but this was a few years ago when I was looking into this. The rotor center may need to be opened up a bit to fit on the rear bus hub/axle nut hole and at least one mounting screw drilled and tapped to hold the rotor in place on the bus hub.

Like Pile said, there's other options of calipers nowadays. I spent a bit of time looking at different rear calipers that would fit on the 190 vented rotor. There have been a whole slew of cars with rear vented rotors, but most all of them had the internal brake shoes for the e-brake or some other setup. Again, this was a few years ago when I was looking at mating the two parts.

[radish]

944 will fit, they use the same bearings but you need 2 spacers 1 on the back of the bearing and the other in between them. You will also need a mount adaptor as the caliper mount distance is different.