FS: Pair of "NOS" Early Front Brake Calipers, Fits "early" cars...but are the late style...read on... Options

[GregAmy]

Short version: for sale, a pair of "NOS" front brake calipers for early 914s, painted red.

Long version: I had these calipers advertised in another thread a few weeks ago; these came to me as spares for my 1974 street car. A fellow 914World buyer snagged them.

Unfortunately, when the buyer went to install them he discovered the offset was wrong; after measuring the offsets between those calipers and some I have at home we discovered that these were not for my 1974 car but instead for the earlier cars (1970-1972? Someone please verify the years.)

Back story is that a prior owner of my 1974 street car installed BMW calipers but instead of milling the mounting ears to correct the offset he chose to install the early rotors onto my car. Why he also had a set of NOS calipers is beyond me, but I guess that gave him the opportunity to put those on later.

Regardless, I need to "make good" on this transaction. I am shipping another set of calipers to the buyer and he's agreed to hold these NOS ones and ship to the new buyer.

As noted, I'm convinced they're NOS and the buyer confirmed this. Before he realized they would not fit he painted them red, so it's very very clean.

Asking $250 shipped Priority Mail CONUS. PMB gets $350 for a pair of rebuilt (plus $200 core if you don't have that) so I think you'll be pleased with these.

Thanks, and let me know if you have any questions! - Greg

[GregAmy]

Ok, so lots of guesses but can't anyone verifiy the identity of these? Surely someone can use a set of NOS front calipers?

I measured up a bunch of various calipers I have laying around. They are:

- A pair of known 1974 (late) Porsche 914 calipers
- A pair of BMW ATE calipers that were milled to fit a late 914.
- A pair of unmodified BMW ATE caliper, same vintage, the ones we install
- A pair of BMW Girling calipers, same vintage BMW 320i
- These NOS calipers

I took some key measurements from them, as follows:
- Slot Width: the distance of the slot where the rotor inserts
- Mount Width: the thickness of the mounting ears
- Mount-to-slot: the distance from the mounting surface of the caliper to the inner wall of the slot
- Offset: the calculate distance from the mounting face to the center of the slot

Late 914
SW: 13mm
MW: 17mm
M2S: 19mm
Offset: 25.5mm

BMW ATE Modified
SW: 15.5
MW: 15
M2S: 18
Offset: 25.75

BMW ATE Unmodified
SW: 16
MW: 18
M2S: 15
Offset: 23

BMW Girling
SW: 16
MW: 18
M2S: 16
Offset: 24

These 914 "NOS" calipers*
SW: 13.5
MW: unknown
M2S: 16
Offset: 23

*Measured off the photo John sent to me, attached in a post above.

Seems to me that late 914s need an offset of around 25.5-26, and early needs around 23. So what this tells me is that these calipers will fit an early 914; the offset is defintiely wrong for a late 914 because they will not fit on John's car; the outer slot edge contacts the outer face of the rotor.

I did not see any evidence of the mounting ears being modified in any way. And no evidence of someone bolting different halves of calipers together (why would anyone do that?) John can review them and see how it looks to him.

Was this some weird crossover caliper, with the early offset but the later hardware? Who knows. But if someone wants some NOS calipers for their early car, or want to mill off ~2.5mm to use these on their late car, then these are the ones for them.

@Eric_Shea , any thoughts?

If no one wants them then I'll simply refund John's money and I'll toss them into the "beer money barrel" to go to the scrapper to be sold by the pound (with, apparently, these other sets of calipers; one only has so much space...)

Let me know if you have interest.

Greg