1965-1967 Early brake Calipers

[Timothy B.]

Yesterday, I went to the spring Carlisle car show just to walk around and look for tidbits of interest not really wanting to spend any $$.

I met a man with a complete set of early brake calipers all castings with #546 and completely stainless sleeved painted etc. He thinks they came from zip corvette and I am really not sure what rebuilder restores these for zip. I want opinions on the casting #'s on the sides of this LF caliper as some are different size, some look normal like I would expect and some small. On the very bottom of the caliper half in the first pic there appears to be stamped ARMASTEEL which I don't understand, all the other halves don't have this that I can see.

The workmanship looks very nice to me so I bought them as the 66 they were intended for got sold and the person selling them stated they had been sitting at his house a few years and he did not want to take them back home. The asking price was $225 which I thought was a very good price but I really did not want to spend $$. He asked me to make him a offer so I offered $100, he did not through anything at me and we agreed on 125 so I bought em..

[Russ S.]

Re: 1965-1967 Early brake Calipers

The initials of the re-builder appear to be stamped in your fourth picture.

[Joe R.]

Re: 1965-1967 Early brake Calipers

Timothy,

Great buy at Spring Carlisle no matter what!!!!

You do understand that the pistons in those calipers are NOT 65-66 pistons don't you?

I'll give you your money back anytime! Pistons don't matter to me! Don't have a 65 or 66!

JR

[Joe L.]

Re: 1965-1967 Early brake Calipers

Yesterday, I went to the spring Carlisle car show just to walk around and look for tidbits of interest not really wanting to spend any $$.

I met a man with a complete set of early brake calipers all castings with #546 and completely stainless sleeved painted etc. He thinks they came from zip corvette and I am really not sure what rebuilder restores these for zip. I want opinions on the casting #'s on the sides of this LF caliper as some are different size, some look normal like I would expect and some small. On the very bottom of the caliper half in the first pic there appears to be stamped ARMASTEEL which I don't understand, all the other halves don't have this that I can see.

The workmanship looks very nice to me so I bought them as the 66 they were intended for got sold and the person selling them stated they had been sitting at his house a few years and he did not want to take them back home. The asking price was $225 which I thought was a very good price but I really did not want to spend $$. He asked me to make him a offer so I offered $100, he did not through anything at me and we agreed on 125 so I bought em..

Timothy-------


The 1st (and 2nd) photos (the ones with the smaller casting number) show a 1965-E67 caliper half that probably originated as a SERVICE caliper half.
Armasteel" does not usually appear on 1st design (i.e. 65-E67) caliper halves. However, it does appear on most 2nd design front outside caliper halves of casting "prefix" 545 manufactured during the L67 to about 1973 period. So, this caliper half was likely a SERVICE 1st design piece manufactured during this period. Once-upon-a-time, before the development of stainless steel lined caliper bores, replacing a caliper half was the only way to correct caliper bore damage.

Incidentally, "Armasteel" was a ductile/malleable iron alloy developed by GM. It was generally used for castings requiring high strength and was usually poured at the old Danville, IL GM foundry (indicated by the "D" casting symbol). 1965-E67 caliper halves are cast of basically the same material but the "Armasteel" is usually not found embossed on original castings. Beginning about 1973 GM apparently decided that such a high strength material was not necessary for Corvette calipers and the calipers from that time on, both PRODUCTION and SERVICE, were cast in gray iron, probably by an outside foundry.

As JR pointed out, the installed pistons are 2nd design. This means that the piston guides have been machined out of the caliper bores and the calipers thus converted to 2nd design configuration. This is a common commercial rebuilder practice and most 1st design calipers have probably been converted to 2nd design by now. Once converted, they cannot be returned to 1st design configuration.

The price you paid is a bargain. Regardless of casting number, the seller could have gotten more than $125 for a car set as just CORES, let alone fully sleeved and rebuilt calipers ready to bolt on.

[Timothy B.]

Re: 1965-1967 Early brake Calipers

Thanks for the reply's, I noticed in MF Dobbins book there is a pic of a J56 caliper that looks like the small part numbers on the side of the caliper like shown in my picture. The other side front caliper with the 5465954 part # is larger without the word ARMASTEEL as Joe pointed out, I guess this half is a service piece.

I had to buy them, as I think cores are about 50 each correct? On my 67 are some vette brakes stainless sleeved calipers that I will sell to install these correct parts, I think the V/B calipers are the 547 series parts.