E30 Zone

I have the Alpina big brakes on my C2, they're great but the time has come to replace the discs, I recently priced these up with the dealer we use at work, I nearly had heart failure when they told me they were £600!!! for the pair”¦ Seriously you would have to be mad to pay that, leaves me in a bit of quandary, I can get a Hi Spec setup for less than that. Does anyone know of an alternative disc I could use, I have access to a lathe and a vertical mill at work so machining is easily possible, I want to ideally keep the Alpina setup on the car but the price of discs is making it look less viable.

Have a look at, Chrysler voyager, and VAG (TT, Golf, Leon etc) 312mm discs. Both are used for custom set ups, so will be close to the standard offset, to get the disc centered in the caliper mouth.

If my memory serves me the voyager ones are exactly right. Both will need center bores, bolt holes, and the diameter machining.

A nicer way would be to get some custom bells and rotors made up.

This the 296mm discs with Merc calipers?
I'm sure there's a VW disc that will fit with machining work done. In fact I think Keri (WMS brakes) made some replacement discs. Might be worth a PM.

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... pina+discs

chase Keri up, I am still up for a pair and so is Si probably ?

The 300mm.de ones are obviously the right tool for the job, still nudging £300 though, if I can get a close match elsewhere then that would be ideal, just looked and I can get the voyager discs for £30 a side, machining is free, going to look in to this further..

Hi I have these disks if you need any measurements

senna wrote:Hi these disks if you need any measurements

Sorry, do you mean you are using these discs??

powelly wrote:The 300mm.de ones are obviously the right tool for the job, still nudging £300 though, if I can get a close match elsewhere then that would be ideal, just looked and I can get the voyager discs for £30 a side, machining is free, going to look in to this further..

The 300mm.de will be done from other discs, so they are out there.

I think the voyager ones need a spacer ring machined to centralise the disc.

Steve, I have a few off a car if you need to borrow one to match them up rather than making your turd dead.

pacerpete wrote:Steve, I have a few off a car if you need to borrow one to match them up rather than making your turd dead.

Thanks, I will take you up on that, i'll give you a call and pop over to pick one up.

maggspower wrote:

powelly wrote:The 300mm.de ones are obviously the right tool for the job, still nudging £300 though, if I can get a close match elsewhere then that would be ideal, just looked and I can get the voyager discs for £30 a side, machining is free, going to look in to this further..

The 300mm.de will be done from other discs, so they are out there.

I think the voyager ones need a spacer ring machined to centralise the disc.

Thanks for that, i notice the Voyager discs are 302mm so need the diameter turning down, like a say I have access to all the machining facilities I need so if all goes well £80 should see me with a new set of discs, much more easy to swallow than other prices.

powelly wrote:

maggspower wrote:

powelly wrote:The 300mm.de ones are obviously the right tool for the job, still nudging £300 though, if I can get a close match elsewhere then that would be ideal, just looked and I can get the voyager discs for £30 a side, machining is free, going to look in to this further..

The 300mm.de will be done from other discs, so they are out there.

I think the voyager ones need a spacer ring machined to centralise the disc.

Thanks for that, i notice the Voyager discs are 302mm so need the diameter turning down, like a say I have access to all the machining facilities I need so if all goes well £80 should see me with a new set of discs, much more easy to swallow than other prices.

Check the offset though, as I am not 100% on it. Machining stuff off is no problem, but you dont want to be making some carbuncle of spacers and adaptor rings etc.

I'm sure i read in a magazine a while back that a guy who owneda b6 3.5 (tony) used Mercedes ones and they were a perfect fit. The car was Blue and it was featured on the front page... Perhaps some one still has it at home?

The calipers are Mercedes, don't think Merc discs will fit, it would be too easy if they did.

every one quotes 296mm, but both sets i've had are more like 294mm.

When Keri had my setup to sort something out he came up with about 28mm thick the above diamter.

Citroen C5 VTS were the closest. They're 4 stud to start very close in offset and just a touch bigger in diameter


Calipers are off a merc w124 300 petrol. Also the 190 cosworth uses them. They use a bespoke caliper carrier to fit the e30 struts. Pads are £20 from GSF its the discs that are unique and the problem but so few cars over here had them fitted which doesn't help

edit they officially 296x25mm

I spent a silly amount of time on this and didn't find a SENSIBLE solution. I found a few daft ones, but that's not much help.

I did have a plan to offer rotors+bells to fit, but there wasn't/isn't enough demand for even one batch....

Mtec brakes do a 312mm 4 stud disc, centre bore needs opening by 1mm but could the disc diameter be turned down to the correct size?

The crysler idea has been taken used and done with success! Some machining work was required but that is well offset by the £43 that the discs cost!

It's true, I am now in possession of a lovely set of discs with another on the way. All machining is done and they are now ready to go on the car

WIN!

All we need now is someone to reproduce the caliper brackets for a good brake upgrade.

Sorry to spam your thread but Keri can you please contact me I've been emailing you with no luck - I'm after a rear brake set up....

Simon13 wrote:Calipers are off a merc w124 300 petrol. Also the 190 cosworth uses them. They use a bespoke caliper carrier to fit the e30 struts. Pads are £20 from GSF its the discs that are unique and the problem but so few cars over here had them fitted which doesn't help

I've been trying to work out which Merc model the alpina calipers came off for a while. Worth an update to the wiki brake article methinks.

They came on my H35 but were sold by the previous owner, but I got a set of bells, calipers and the larger cylinder for a decent price from Ze Germans.

How could you copy the carriers - assume it'd need a mould made ?

They are cast iron.

I'm convinced they are a standard Merc part as I borrowed one from pete and it had a partial Merc part number on it.

Merc parts like all BMW parts have group numbers so the first two digits are the main group (11 is engine for example) then the next two digits are the sub group.

The bracket had a Merc brake group number on it.

I took loads of pics of the bracket/ saddle and posted it on a few Merc forums but with no joy!

I also goggled the f uck out of the german translation for mercedes brake saddle with no joy.

I'll post the pics in a bit.

I would doubt it was a special casting, as Barry says its most likely borrowed from another manufacturer. Have you tried searching the ATE catalogue for example?

bss325i wrote:They are cast iron.

I'm convinced they are a standard Merc part as I borrowed one from pete and it had a partial Merc part number on it.

Merc parts like all BMW parts have group numbers so the first two digits are the main group (11 is engine for example) then the next two digits are the sub group.

The bracket had a Merc brake group number on it.

I took loads of pics of the bracket/ saddle and posted it on a few Merc forums but with no joy!

I also goggled the f uck out of the german translation for mercedes brake saddle with no joy.

I'll post the pics in a bit.

My 'alpina' calipers have two areas ground off them and I'm sure that's where the Merc badges go, so I'd agree they are Merc. I can confirm that they are not Merc 190 cosworth carriers, as I have a brand new one here and it doesn't fit !

Dropped them over to Si tonight, his dad is going to skim them over on the grinder, just to give them a real nice finish, overall height was within 1/2 mm of the OE item so offsets should be bang on pretty much. Saw some rather large discs of yours too Barry, guess they're not going on you sport!!! I might get our machinist to have a look at the caliper carriers, might well be something he can re produce, he's made up all sorts of complicated stuff so I wouldn't put anything past him.

They're a girling caliper with the same setup as the 325's have but much bigger. I've always thought the caliper carrier was a special casting to get the merc caliper to fit the e30 strut. So imo there is no maching up a bracket to mount them. If they were ATE it would be a different story

The calipers are generic merc stuff. I've bought some recon ones for Steves car and mine and the exhange ones come with the merc logo on them! You can't see it when bolted on the car!

I'd post some pictures but my internet is having a slow night. I'm sure i've said all this before somewhere!

The partial merc brake part number,

Look at the part number in this link.

http://www.mercedes-benz-parts.co.uk/br ... 66147.html

4202 is the same

got to be worth getting one to find out hey ?

http://www.discountcarpartsonline.co.uk ... ulics.html

pic of them here

That link just takes you to the beginning of the car selector.