brake caliper torque. overtorqued
 

I've done ton of brake jobs before. I've worked as a mechanic for a few years now. I'm just having 2nd thoughts because my friend is taking his car to the time attack and I did his brakes. I did not use a torque wrench, but I make the bolts good and tight, and never had complaints.

I'm scared that with all the heat, what if something breaks, cracks? He has a bmw with a brembo brake upgrade. It has that alluminum bracket to fit the bigger brakes. Am I trippin? I'm thiking about going back and using the torque wrench. I've never had issues before, but most cars I work on are street driven.

I did however use the torque wrench to bolt on the new rotors. I think the spec was like 62inch lbs from brembo. I'm wondering about the mounting bracket

Hmm, I never used a tq wrench to put my calipers on, just did em good and tight. You can probably find the torque spec in the FSM, it has it for nearly every bolt on the car. If you're really worried you should safety wire them.

Maybe I should rephrase my question.

Has anyone had a problem with their brake mounting bolts whent he brakes became really hot? Nothing on it now is stripped, it's just torqued down real good, i would say a little more than spec, but not enough to damage threads. I'm afraid when things heat up, i'm hoping nothing cracks. I think i'm just trippin. Any more advice?

You would think that if a special torque pressure was so critical, the brake kit itself would have specified the torque requirements. You might check there.

we've run the last three 25 hours of thunderhill's. one thing we don't have problems with are the brakes, and we have had to stop and change them during the race too.

if you're really paranoid, go make sure its tight.

Never a problem with calipers after tightening with a normal wrench, less than gorilla tight even. Lug nuts.... check them before every session.

I always torque everything down to spec if I can reach it with a torque wrench.

FD Rear calipers are 47-63 lbs.

FD front caliper bolts 58-72 lbs.

That's one thing that has never caused any problems.

Thanks guys. I was completeley tripping out. I got my new 2ft long 1/2"drive snap on ratchet, and I grab it about 2/3-3/4 of the way down and tighten pretty tight.

Well if one comes loose and shifts around, you know the car will come to a stop fairly quickly and the driver will need an underwear change.

Do they make race underwear? :D

Yes but its only fireproof, it will still stain:lol:

What if your ass isn't on fire, but it still burns??? LOL

ok, so I ended up having to take off the brakes to install something else. It felt like I had a good torque on them on removal, not too much.

If the steel bolts were going into normal steel mounting brackets, I would not be worried.

But if the mounting brackets are aluminum like your first post says, then I would be worrying about overtightening the bolts and stripping out the aluminum threads.

I got to drive a Lambo Diablo when I was instructing at a track day about 5 years ago, and the owner had put new pads in himself the night before, and he had left the left front caliper bolts loose. Murphys law prevailed, and it failed on me at the end of the longest straightaway. I did not loose all brakes, but that one wheel locked up real bad. Fortunately there was just enough run off room where I did not bend any sheet metal. As I was sliding off the track, I had visions of being in debt the rest of my life trying to pay off that Diablo.

wow! that sucks. I'm sure they aren't undertorqued. What kind of racing diapers did you get? jk

Perfect example there why I don't instruct, and if I did instruct, would never drive another person's car. I'm someone who would feel obligated to pay for a mistake like that, and I don't want to feel that responsibility.

PaulC