E34 540i brakes with 16" Hartges - a few issues

[clarko74]

I'm attempting to fit e34 540i front brakes at the moment, everything was going well until I attempted to fit the wheel, I knew they would be close but these are a bit too close to the wheel. The wheel will turn quite easily but the caliper is rubbing very slightly on the inside on of the wheel. I need to find a couple of mm from somewhere.

Here are a few pics:

Caliper mounting, note that the caliper is hard up against the strut, in fact I had to file a very small amount off the caliper to get it to fit.






Clearance to wheel, the wheel turns but the caliper wipes the dirt off the inside of the wheel:




The above is with a 2.5mm wheel spacer.

So, what can I do about this? Here are the options I think I have:

• Use thicker spacers, I'd rather not do this as the tyres I'm planning on using are 225 wide and I think I will start having clearance issues with the wheel arch if the spacers are any thicker
• I could have some more brackets made with the holes closer together, bringing the caliper further in. I would then have problems with the caliper clashing with the strut and would have to file one of them down to get them to fit. Not ideal as I don't like the idea of removing material from the caliper
• Or I could take a grinder to the caliper and take a mm off the outside where necessary, again I don't like this idea as it is removing material from the caliper.

I know this conversion has been done a few times before and that it can be made to work so it would be interesting to hear from anyone that has done this to see if they had any problems and how they sorted them out?

Cheers

[DanThe]

I dont remember having many problems when I did mine, im sure the wheel went on easily but im using 5mm spacers anyway.
The part of the caliper closest to wheel on mine is just above the numbers

[DanThe]

Decent quality pic



I dont think I have any pictures showing the gap better

I did grind the ribbed bits down slightly, but there is no clearance issues there anyway

[Lurch320i]

I too had to grind the carrier down slightly to stop it clashing against the hub
I'm also using 16" wheels and clearence was tight and you could just about move the wheel but it would scrape against the caliper
I took a grinder to the outer edge of the caliper and now spins freely
Literally just 1-2mm I took off and fits fine

I'm it using hartge rims, I have bbs lm reps

[BMW_E30vert]

What does it take to fit the e34 brakes is it just machining correct holes on disc?

[Grrrmachine]

Lurch just did a writeup:

http://www.e30zone.net/modules.php?name ... c&t=258803

[clarko74]

Thanks for the replies.

Having looked at the dimensions on the drawing in the wiki I think I know why mine are so tight. The dimension between the strut and caliper holes is 25mm on mine but it is 24mm on the drawing, that's going to put the whole caliper 1mm further out towards the rim. Doesn't sound like much but it seems that every mm counts here.

I might see if I can sell these ones to someone with larger wheels (so the additional 1mm won't affect them) and get another set made up.

[DanThe]

You will know if its right by the position of the pad on the disc