[JustLetMeDriveIt]

Ok I know this has been covered a million times but hear me out!

Parts, particularly here in Australia, are getting incredibly rare for older model Toyotas, so I've done my research and can find no bolt on options for new Calipers, currently my stock ones have badly pitted cylinders and new ones cost over $130AUD for just one, then there is the matter of the guides, springs and plates that prevent vibration and movement on the pads, the just don't exist anywhere anymore. I don't mind doing some minor fabrication at all, I am upgrading my absolutely ruined master cylinder to a 15/16" bore Hiluc MC and will eventually do a TechnoToyTuning Big Brake upgrade if nothing else comes up, but I really don't want to wait for the time it'll take to afford that given the amount of work needed on the rest of the car...

So I come to you, as a poor young man with questionable mechanical ability, begging for help.

I need a swap, obviously I'd love an upgrade but I am not fussy, Corona XT130 Struts don't exist anymore, everyone in 2005 snatched those up apparently, same goes for RT132 struts. Corona hubs have a similar issue, and while I could get some shipped from Freedom Land the calipers and rotors are a true rarity here, so thats more or less out of the picture. Ideally Hilux parts would be perfect but mostly those are what is matched with the Corona struts.

If worst comes to worse I can botch up some things for the calipers but I am trying to keep safety up front. So with that, what do I need to look for in terms of caliper dimensions, we don't have scrapyards that you can wander around in here anymore so it's made things like this rather difficult.

So if anyone smarter and more experienced than me can give even a list of hubs that fit straight to the spindle I can likely handle the rest!

Thanks all!

I am also happy to provide dimensions etc for everything. I imagine something will fit considering the JB1337 and JB1898 master cylinders are almost identical bar the $600AUD price difference

 

[Funkycheeze]

This hasn't been covered a million times because this forum covers MA6x Supra which is mechanically similar to RA6x Celica. So you won't find much info on a RA28 here unfortunately.

 

[JustLetMeDriveIt]

Well damn that's annoying, all the forums for the first gen Celicas are all seemingly dead so I thought I'd try here.
Well if anyone's got any ideas I'd love to hear them regardless! Plan is to find any decently inexpensive hub that fits the spindle, mock up a bracket to mount the caliper for that hub (or at least one that fits over whatever rotor I put on it) and hope that it works

 

[pdupler]

Don't know the hot rodding solution, but with older/rarer cars, the solution to internal brake corrosion is often to have a machine shop bore and sleeve your master cylinders and/or calipers with stainless steel, while either machining components to use more commonly available seals or the stock seals if available. In the US, you might try White Post Restoration or Apple Hydraulics. Don't know where to send you in Australia tho, but I'm sure if you ask around at classic car shows, spot the owner of some rare old British roadster, somebody could give you a reference. Probably a shop in Australia that does the same thing. Be a lot easier and probably no more expensive in the long run. Our US Rockauto.com website seems to show brake hardware still available (I'm not fully versed on what all is needed for the Australian market RA28), tho calipers are out of stock.

 

[NoClueGT]

I'm assuming you have seen bit of my build because you saw one of my post on brakes for this chassis. Biggest issue with this chassis is all the knowledge has been lost or forgotten since all the 1gen forums I could find are dead/not visibable to nonmembers.
77 Celica GT Build

I also want to put it out there for everyone that I have a suspicion that the whole 2nd gen MR2 front suspension could be swapable for us RA28 chassis cars with a bit of work.

 

[JustLetMeDriveIt]

That's exactly the case, I haven't found a single living first gen forum that has active or frankly useful members.
I've gone down huge rabbit holes searching for borderline worthless parts purely because I either don't have thousand of bucks to spend or because they just don't seem to exist anymore.

Interesting that you mention the MR2 suspension, I was cruising past one the other day and had a similar thought, they're insanely common down under compared with most of the other cars that have similar enough parts so I'd absolutely be keen to hear your suspicions out!!

 

[JustLetMeDriveIt]

Honestly my main concern with my '28 is to get it to a point where servicing and replacing standard parts isn't going to be the nightmare it currently is. So I've gone with a common Hilux master cylinder with a bigger than stock bore to allow more brake options, I'll stick with rear drums for now until I can develop a reasonable option for them, that might be going to disc or just changing to a more common drum.

I've done a few years of mechanical engineering before I moved to software development so I wouldn't consider very much to be out of my scope.

I would ideally like to have the plans and whatever else I do including every part number both stock and otherwise so that others with a '28 or similar first gen might be able to have a much easier time than the most of us

 

[NoClueGT]

The reason I suspect the MR2 (sw20 and sw11 too) would swap into an RA/TA chassis is that the knuckle bolts on to the the ball joint like the RA28 Celica does. I've only seen one MR2 in the junk yard and I regret not taking these parts to find out.

My thought is that you could use the RA28 lower arm, ball joint and steering arm to keep the steering geometry factory and bolt on the MR2 knuckle and strut. The strut mount from the RA28 bolts on the the MR2 strut. This would keep the 'hard points' (ball joint, steering and strut mount) in the factory location minimizing odd suspension geometry changes assuming the MR2 spindle is also in roughly the same place as factory as the RA28 part.

(I know the strut mounts are swappable because we did that at first because we modified our factory struts to use the shorter rear MR2 cartridges to get the car lower. We eventually modified the shock tower to use the front MR2 strut mount and rear springs/strut cartridges because those parts are smaller so we could add more camber and caster before hitting the body/tower.)

Factory MR2 (1995)

RA28 Celica

IMG_4451.JPG

• NoClueGT
• May 25, 2021

Test fit of Cressida rotor/hub and Mk2 caliper on 15 rims with stock 77 celica spindle

If you wanted you could try using the whole MR2 setup from the lower arms to the struts because the MR2 lower arms look like modern versions of the RA28 lower arm/tension rod setup. Would require checking all the geometry to find out if things need modified because all I have is my suspicions.

IF I am right...
Pros
- Bolt on (possibly)
- bigger factory brakes
- MR2 aftermarket support for new parts/mods
- ???

Cons
- different lug patterns 4x100/5x114.3 vs 4x114.3
- possible geometry differences (unknown till someone tries)
- General Unknowns
- ???



What are your thoughts on this?

 

[NoClueGT]

Found another possible cheap brake upgrade for our early RA chassis. I learned this weekend that Legend cars are based on 76-81 Celicas. These cars use the front brakes and a modified rear axle from our car. There are bolt on Wilwood kits and more options for rear shoes made for those cars.

600 Racing Online Catalog has a diagram that makes it clear that it is Celica based when you see that parts. They used everything from the calipers, brackets, rotors and hubs from the front of the RA chassis
600 Racing Store: Brakes Front/Rear

$410 USD currently LEGEND WILWOOD FRONT BRAKE KIT
I think this is using a Dynapro Single caliper. No idea what piston size. I have seen this used in the VW world on Beetles and Type3s


Take a look and tell me what you think.