Fiat 124 rear caliper on Lancia Zagato?

[Jon Logan]

OK, I royally screwed up my PS rear caliper on the '79 Zagato. The brake bleeder screw was frozen and snapped off... I knew that would happen and I picked up a bleeder repair kit. I drilled out the old bleeder then drilled the hole for the tap to the specified size (the Napa kit had a 7/16 - 20 insert and said to drill with 25/64th bit.. Well the drill bit either slid while drilling or was too big, as the 7/16 tap only ground more material away from the caliper, no thread it! DAMN!

In looking for a solution (I have no local source for a replacement caliper) I discovered that the Fiat 124 rear caliper fits the Lancia rear mount bracket perfectly. The wedges fit in and the squeeze points appear to be satisfactory. The only difference on the 124 caliper is that it has a hose connect directly to it and it is a tapered thread for the feed line. It is the same thread pitch as the Lancia banjo bolt and is super easy to tap to the 10mmx1.25 for the banjo bolt. The e-brake mechanism is identical between the two models. I will have to drill out the 124 cable retainer a little to fit the Beta brake cable but again, that is no big deal.

Since I have boxes of 124 rear caliper cores available to modify, is there any reason this would not work or not be safe?

thanks
Jon Logan

[Jim Keller]

Hum, should work, it's just fluid pushing on a piston, as long as the pistons are realitivly the same size and location, I wouldn't think it would make any braking differences ???

[Jon Logan]

Well, hopefully I won't have to find out. My local machine shop looked at the caliper and the guy has solid sleeve inserts in the right thread size to match my bleeder "repair" kit. :o ..

So, now the new bleeder will be inside a repair sleeve INSIDE a repair sleeve. :)

I should be able to pick it up on my way home tonight and have it all back together for tomorrow morning.

If that should fail, I have two 124 rear calipers ready to convert and try.

Jon

[Charley]

Jon,
From your descriptions,in my opinion the 124 calipers should be perfectly safe to use.As long as the caliper and wedges fit snug and the hoses will not rub anything or get pinched,sounds like a winner to me.I love to improvise with parts when needed myself.
Charley
Oh,by the way next time you run into a frozen bleeder screw you might want to consider trying a pencil torch to heat around the screw.A pencil torch will concentrate the heat in a very thin stream right where you need it,and will not heat the rest of the caliper so much as to damage it. I bought my pencil torch from Harbor Freight years ago and have used this technique to free up bleeders numerous times with 100% success.