TheSamba.com :: View topic

Sun Mar 25, 2012 2:21 pm

I am in the looonnnggg process of building a fiberglass buggy. Got an extremely nice pan from a Samba member and working on getting it ready.

Pan has a front disk brake setup which looks original. The wheels I am going to have are Porsche 5X130 phone dials. Rotors are in excellent shape and has the standard 4X130 bolt pattern. My question is, is it possible/practical to redrill these rotors safely to Porsche pattern?

I prefer not to use wheel adapters.

Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:21 pm

You can, what are you going to do at the back? Pre-drilled rotors in a Porsche pattern are widely available through a number of outlets.

Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:05 pm

Currently I have drum brakes in the back. I am planning on replacing them with cbperformance rotohub kit. Seems like the best economical option. They claim to have dual action calipers which is better than ac industries ones others are selling (only single piston).

I want to see if I can reuse the rotors and keep the costs low. I don't know if it is cheaper to replace. Just wanted to check the possibility.

Sun Mar 25, 2012 9:09 pm

You might want to make sure of the offset on your wheels first, because the phone dials have various offsets and some will not fit if they are bolted directly to the brake(drum or rotor). I have phone dials on my buggy and they just clear the suspension and that is with adapters(about 1" thick) and 15mm spacers. I drive my buggy hard and occasionally road race it and have no problems at all with adapters.

Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:37 am

Head,
Your buggy looks really nice!

Back spacing of the wheels I have is 23.5mm. I am assuming you have 52.5mm back spacing which allows for a wheel adapter.

What are the wheel sizes you have?

Mon Mar 26, 2012 3:19 pm

Front are 15" x 6" with a 52.3 offest
Rears are 15" x 7" with a 23.3 offset

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:01 pm

By the time you pay a machine shop to redrill the rotors you could probably buy new and sell your current rotors. Unless you are a machinist with an index mill this is not a DIY project for many reasons

brad

Mon Mar 26, 2012 6:11 pm

karu wrote: Head,
Your buggy looks really nice!
Is nicer in person. ;)

Mon Mar 26, 2012 9:21 pm

Glenn wrote: karu wrote: Head,
Your buggy looks really nice!
Is nicer in person. ;)

Thanks Glenn.....just wait to you see the Manx that I am almost done with for the wife.

P.S. Saw your tranny in Hot VWs today.

Tue Mar 27, 2012 3:54 am

Yes, it is a nice buggy. As for the Rotors, I just went through the same thing. My forum is building my 70 manx. What I did was took the Rotor off the car and bolted the adaptor to the rotor so I would make sure its true and I drilled the studs for the patern. Then I bolted the wheel on and tack wedlded the studs and filled the extra holes in . This was by far the way to go. I put them on a wheel balancer and they are true with no problems. Good luck Brian

Tue Mar 27, 2012 5:49 am

Thanks all for all the insight.

Brian, I am really new to kit cars and somewhat apprehensive about attempting to drill it myself. Right now, I think the best option for me is to buy some new rotors with the porsche pattern.

On a related note, I see that places like napa and autozone sell rebuilt calipers, each around $47. Has anyone used them? Are they comparable in quality to the original calipers?