[DeTomaso] Caliper bolts--when was the last time you checked? The "REST" of the story... or "Part II"...

[steven.liebenow at att.net]

As one of the guys that was dealing with this affair directly, here is my 
accounting.....

Brembo rear brakes from one of our vendors, perhaps even installed by the 
vendor.....not sure of all the ownership here....

Stainless adapter bracket bolted to DeTomaso hub carrier using metric tapered 
head allen bolts machined down to fit in recesses of adaptor.  12x1.5 IIRC

12 pt bolts, two, used to retain the caliper to the above bracket.  Fine thread, 
standard.  (7/16"x24)

One of the tapered headed allen screws had backed out and fallen away.....second 
one loosened up over time and allowed the caliper to "grumble" and resonate 
through the chassis......and since the driver had nailed a "road gator" a while 
back, he presumed that he'd knocked something out in the suspension.....

In reality, he just had a loose caliper!   Now, two attaching bolts....one was 
captive by the caliper shims etc, the other not captive.   The not captive one 
escaped......

We stopped near a Valero gas station hoping to use the hoist....  "we can't do 
exotic cars"....."and that car is an exotic car".....ass wipe lawyers....(sorry 
to any of you guys that are lawyers, but it really is your fault, I believe in 
the laws of common sense...!!!! )  SO we worked on the car in the shade of some 
nearby trees!  There just happened to be an ACE hardware store in this little 
strip mall...which turned out to be the silver lining of this story!

After raiding member's for a jack and tools (this car did not come with a 
jack!), ratchets, sockets etc, we ended up with enuf tools to get the rear wheel 
up and off, and take the caliper apart....  (IT IS AMAZING HOW MANY PEOPLE (me 
included) DO NOT CARRY 12PT SOCKETS!!!!  (I usually do...but failed to put my 
12pt rack in my travel tool box this trip!...that could have been bad for 
me....with my record of issues....but not this trip!)

First we located a regular hex head bolt and a washer to retain the bracket to 
the hub carrier.  Even had we obtained a proper tapered head bolt.....we had no 
way to grind it down.....and this was gonna work fine.   We also picked up some 
blue thread locker....AS THERE WAS NONE ON THESE BOLTS!!!!  Problem #1.

Working to get the caliper bolts back in place, the guy mentioned that one of 
the bolts was a little buggered up on the last 2-3 threads.  I had a file in my 
tools, so took to working with that to get the threads back more in line with a 
happy place.   Apparently the stainless bracket threads were buggered up 
too....since the guy working to put the caliper came up with a second 
bolt....with buggered up threads on the end!  I advised that we stop right 
here....and head back to ACE to get a proper tap.....

With tap in hand, we had to dry tap the threads clean again.....1/4 turn at a 
time since no one had a tiny open or 12pt wrench......but the job was handled.   
First cleaned up bolt went in fine!  Second bolt needed a little clean up....but 
it went in reasonably well until the last 2-3 turns.   At this point.....the 
last couple of turns were done with some resistance but not terribly bad.   The 
fear being that if the threads were giving up in the stainless....and galled at 
all going back out....the bolt may get to a point where it turns neither in or 
out....and you're stuck with a bolt that isn't tight!!!!!  Not chancing that, I 
went to err on the tight side of this.....

Now, if I had worked on this car originally, I WOULD HAVE PUT ANTI-SEIZE ON 
THESE TWO BOLTS to prevent galling and lock up due to dis-similar metals and 
ionic transfer of materials.....  This latter thing had not yet happened, and 
perhaps there was a coating of some sort on these bolts to prevent this.....but 
I just know what I would have done if this were my car!    We didn't have 
any.;...nor did we purchase any from Ace, but the owner insisted that the car 
was going back to his mechanic to get this all sorted out soon.

Wheel went back on, screwed the jack down...and sent the owner on a short lap of 
the parking lot....no more grumble (or vibration) and off we went....back to the 
freeway.....since we had lost any of the cooler morning air that we would have 
been driving in through the rest of this urban portion of the tour....(no more 
stop lights to cause overheating!!! ugh!)   Rest of the drive up to the 
mountains was fine....and beautiful.....a little dry(!!!) but beautiful!!!

What I didn't like about this conversion!  (IMHO!!!!!)

1) Stainless adapter bracket.    Hardened steel would have been fine and easier 
to work with in terms of fasteners and no metal transfer issues.
2) Tapered allen head bolts.  WTF!?   A 10-12mm bolt, with a 4mm socket head?   
If ya gotta have an allen head, why not a 7mm version that won't strip out or 
turn the allen wrench into a pretzel!!!! OH, and it surely was a metric 
allen....but I think we used 3/16"....      SINCE there appears to be plenty of 
material around this area of the bolt hole, I would have sunk in a square hole 
and just recessed a hex head bolt....complete with lock washer......or I would 
have made the bracket work this way...... Did I mention that I hate tapered 
allen bolts!?   ...and I haven't even dealt with the ones that hold my axle 
shafts in place yet.....ugh!

These last two items were probably the result of the mechanic doing the job, and 
or no mention of this in the assembly instructions:

3) Blue thread locker on the bracket to hub carrier bolts.  OR, safety wire on 
the non-captive bolt.....
4) Anti-seize on the caliper to bracket bolts.....  OR make the bracket out of 
regular old non-fussy steel, that could be hardened.....

Lastly, carry at least the basic of tools...... It is amazing at how much you 
can really fix when you have them.....instead of riding home with "Bubba" in his 
air conditioned crew cab slant back truck.......if you're lucky!!!!

This is just what I felt about the whole thing.......and since I've been through 
my fair share of "roadside" experiences with just my own car.....I feel that I 
can talk!

Ciao!
Steve