Re: [alfa] caliper rebuild kit

["David Jarman" <jarmanhome@xxxxxxx>]

Regarding the Akron brand seal kits, I ran into the same situation recently
with the front calipers on my '91 Spider.

And frankly, I'm not interested in anything the vendors have to say about how
many Akron kits they sell without complaint, that they've been selling them
for 80 years, that it's a well known aftermarket source in Europe, that
they've owned Alfas that never rusted nor threw a timing belt, blah blah
blah...  I don't care about all that.

I've spent many years in the rubber goods industry, with major OEM
manufacturers, tier one and two suppliers to automotive, and while I'm no
rubber PhD, I can recognize when molded rubber parts don't fit the article
they're supposed to seal.  After trying to fit the Akron dust boots, both
inside-out and the normal way, I compared them to an undamaged OEM (ATE) boot,
and saw why my efforts were futile.  They were molded with the wrong
dimensions, either by initial mold design or by compound shrinkage.  They
would of course fit the piston, but not the cavity where the lock ring
resides.  New rings were not included in the Akron kit (unlike the ATE kits I
later received), and the boots had no lip to retain the boot even if it had
fit the cavity.  If you looked at a cross section of the ATE boot versus the
Akron boot, they didn't even look similar!  Also, the lathe-cut rings for the
pistons were a bit big, as they made it very difficult to retract the pistons
into the bores.  Again, a shrinkage issue with the rubber compound, the wall
of the molded tube being too thick for the gland and the available clearance.

I wound up ordering original ATE kits from Spruell, which fit like the
proverbial glove.  I would not recommend the Akron kits for brake
applications, although I recently used an Akron kit successfully for the
clutch slave cylinder rebuild.   My advice is to order OEM kits from a source
which has access to them, don't waste your time and money with Akron.  And,
ASK the vendor what brand kits they want to ship you.


Dave Jarman
Lexington, KY
USA
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