Braking up!

In an Eric Morecambe moment it seems that the internet supplier has not supplied us the wrong seals for our Polo brake calipers, He has in fact supplied the right seals, just not necessarily for the right callipers. I shall explain.

The car is an '82 model and it seems early '82 and '83 models used a smaller bore calliper than the later models. A search on the internetweb shows that the majority of suppliers don't know this so list the later ones for all models.

Not a problem, I thought, I shall go in person with the callipers to our local old fashioned motor factors Waterloo Engineering, who have always been very knowledgeable and good at matching up old parts. After a bit more internet research I had produced a shortlist of possible matches including parts from Toyota Land Cruisers, Land Rover Defenders and Mitsubishi Shogun - it seems like the same brakes used on the front of Polos were possible once popular as rear disc brakes on 4x4's. And also the Mercedes Sprinter van. Possibly. All appeared in pictures to have very similar seals of the same bore and outside diameters, surely just a matter of comparing them in the flesh with the old ones.

Anyhow arriving at Waterloo I was stunned to find they have been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century and would you believe they no longer stock brake seal repair kits. There is no demand apparently, and no matter how long I was prepared to stand and demand now, they weren't going to change. They helpfully pointed me in the direction of local VW parts specialist Ricci Concept.

Ricci helpfully confirmed that yes the early polos had a smaller calliper, but vouchsafed that the seals were now obsolete. They did let me have the part number though which was helpful. Their best suggestion was to find the calipers and carriers off a later polo, maybe a '94 pair would fit, as the hub appears to have remained unchanged. Ricci Concept specialise more modern VW/AUDI/SKODA etc and cater more for the boy racer than the classic restorer. I had a feeling that if I had wanted big vented discs and performance custom built brakes they could have supplied them at the drop of a hat, but not the original parts we needed. Friendly and helpful, just not able to supply us. Maybe our contact Matt might still have the brakes on the '90 Polo he's breaking for parts? 

Trying to keep the little bus as original as possibly I'm keen to get the brakes working again if at all feasible. So, reasoning that someone, somewhere in the world might have old stock parts and now armed with the part number I trawled the internet again. What wonderful times we live in - in seconds Autodoc proved to have a choice of brands of the caliper rebuild kits available and affordable. Not obsolete at all, there is a healthy supply. The game is on again. Project Polo continues.