Don't trust "torque" markings

[CamayroZ]

A month ago, I read a classic comment by @sfdon Not an exact quote but something like "...any idiot with a pen can mark a bolt head..."

So, after spending many hours searching for genuine "Girling" front calipers (for a 2002 project car), I gave up and ended up with a different brand caliper, of course made in China. Frankly, out of the box, they look good, they seem to fit perfect, and I will know more once I bleed them.

I noticed all the torque makings on the caliper, and it really impressed me. But then I remembered Don's comment, therefore I decided to test all the fasteners. And good enough, half were hand tight, and the other half were not very tight!

In the old days, torque marks on a fastener meant that the fastener was torqued to spec, today it means that the marking pen works!

 

[sfdon]

Trust but verify!!!

 

[Aussiecsi]

...I'm reminded of the "remanufactured" Chinese injectors I bought (about $200 delivered) .Being the adventurous type, I rolled the dice....snake eyes ! ...fuel pissed out everywhere and lucky car didn't go up in a puff of smoke .Anything from Mr Xi is verboten here.

 

[CamayroZ]

I spent many many hours searching for US/European replacement caliper, and I even reached out to some senior people in this space. But I have learned that for this class of product - production is 100% Low-Cost Country, specifically brake caliper production is dominated by China. This goes with the rebuild kits such seals and pistons.

I understand the root cause and have no problems with it as long as the product meets the original specifications. However, I know better...

Now I am wondering about the "10.8" on the boltheads? Is it a tensile strength grade or just a number!

 

[sfdon]

We won’t buy or install white zinc calipers and we don’t buy Chinese anything,

Send your old calipers to Caliper HQ and have them done properly.

 

[eriknetherlands]

Good catch of the caliper bolts.
Hate to guess what could have happened .

While agreeing very much,
it also deserves some nuance (or balance) on the production location story.

Crap comes from certain places because we want cheap. If we didn't ask for it, it wouldn't be made.
And yes, ruling parts out by their production origin effectively protects you from crap (and harm). I'm on that team too.

From the same countries you can likely also get get decent, good, or outright perfect parts IF you specify them as such, and then accept the price they should have.

Friend of mine works in the plastics industry, buying injection moulds. The really good ones come from Switserland. And also from China. They are the same price. They both last 100's of millions of plastic pieces. So they buy half here, and half there to keep some buying leverage

From China they also buy injection moulds that when they need only a thousand or so pieces. But they are dirt cheap. And Switserland (or germany or other high tech country) simply can't make em that cheap. If you only need 500 or 50.000 pieces, you have little options nowadays.
If a country doesn't have a labor force that accepts the bare minimum to live& exist, the cheap production simply isn't an option.

So for a brake caliper, I'd say dirt cheap isn't a smart idea.

Personally I find "cheap" a bad idea anyway (environmental things comes to mind), plus i detest the bad engineering it usually holds.

With joy I part with my hard earned money if the person on the other side delivers excellent work.

Sorry for the rant - i should be heading back welding my front fenders instead of going keyboard warrior mode ...