Viewing 24 posts - 1 through 24 (of 24 total)
  • Replacement disc caliper piston kits – any demand?
  • KingFettler
    Free Member

    I’ve just got access to a CNC lathe and I’m thinking of producing replacement piston kits for disc brakes. Kits would be – pistons in stainless steel, new piston seals and high temp silicone grease. Does this sound attractive to anyone? Just trying to gauge demand at the mo. May do some shimano calliper cap tools as well. Kits should be hopefully be priced much lower than manufacturer’s kits. Just dropped some into an old set of Hope E4’s and they feel totally rejuvenated, no more sticking at all.

    Cheers all.

    KINGTUT
    Free Member

    This is an advert isn’t it..

    KingFettler
    Free Member

    Not yet, just testing the water

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    toys19
    Free Member

    avid juicies suffer from sticky pistons, dunno why but I would be keen to try some stainless ones to see if it works.

    namastebuzz
    Free Member

    What sort of cost are we looking at?

    Sounds like a goer to me 🙂

    IamSam
    Free Member

    Pretty sure you cannot get replacements for shimano stuff so you could be on to a winner there. I know when I looked and asked around last year there was nothing that I could find and I just wanted a seal kit.

    The brake is in pieces at the moment as it sticks so a new piston and seals would be very nice.

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    If it were me KingFettler I’d be looking very closely at getting product liability insurance.

    If some numpty fits these things, injures themselves and then says it’s your fault (regardless of if it is or not) it’ll be you the PI lawyers will be looking at and you’ll need representation.

    toys19
    Free Member

    btw you can buy a juicy piston kit from crc for a tenner here will you be competitive?

    peachos
    Free Member

    if you were to produce an alternative to manufacturer’s official kit at a much lower price then they would probably sell, but i wouldn’t say the market is particularly huge and one big issue you would have to overcome is making people aware of your product as currently everyone would be heading straight for the manufacturer’s spares.

    as a first product in a whole line of products it may work better. something like superstar’s model perhaps, where you would be known for producing various spare parts rather than just one thing.

    julianwilson
    Free Member

    I wonder how many of us have thrown away and replaced leaky/weepy shimano calipers just because they will not do spares?

    So yes I would be interested in a bore cap tool if it could be used to replace reliable replacement seals and pistons and competes favourably with £30 a caliper on CRC.

    I would also look at minimising cost to consumer by supplying different kits, ie: seals only, seals and pistons, seals pistons and bore cap tool, plus or minus sachets of kluber silicon grease which I guess you could source in bulk from somewhere like formula do.

    KT, the likes of Troutie and Smudge seem very welcome on here, what is the difference?

    fivespot
    Free Member

    Alloy pistons tend to corrode and stick, they also transfer a lot of the disc/pad heat to the fluid. The later Hope Phenolic (ceramic I think) pistons won’t corrode or transfer as much heat to the fluid 😉

    TandemJeremy
    Free Member

    Can you get seals for shimano? That wpould make a few bob

    Can you undercut Hope piston kits ( dunno who else has piston kits available) and hope are phenolic

    Very small market i would have thought but if you can source the seals then you might have a market

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    I think Magura rely on a magnetic pistons/piston inserts to hold the pads in?

    DaveGr
    Free Member

    Having serviced Hope brakes in the past I now send the whole lot off to Hope for them to service. Think it’s good VFM.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    2 comments

    1) As someone up there said, most good brakes have phenolic (plastic) pistons which insulate the fluid fromt he heat in the pads. Hope even offered these as a upgrade for older brakes. So stainless steel would be a step backwards.

    2) Brakes seem to have a mean time to failiure of ~5 years or so. Take the mountainbiking market (small), the number of people still running the same brakes after 5 years (smaller), the number of those who would bother rebuilding them rather than buying a new set of brakes for <£100 (tiny).

    Saying that, I’d take a seal kit for a set of 5yr old shimano XTR callipers and XT levers.

    dangerousbeans
    Free Member

    Have heard Hope pretty much replace everything for the service price, unbeatable I reckon.

    KingFettler
    Free Member

    Will get the specs for shimano sorted over the weekend, should be able to source compatible seals for them.

    Onzadog
    Free Member

    I’m about the put a set of E4s on my commuter. Just wondering if the stainless pistons would hold up better in the winter salt than the original alloy ones. I might be interested in a bikes worth.

    KingFettler
    Free Member

    Should be more resistant, could do 8 for £30 including P+P haven’t got the seals in yet though so you’d need to get those from hope/ChainReac

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    I’d be interested in a bore cap tool and seals, if you can source reliable compatible seals. I doubt anyone has damaged a piston and they can prob be reused with a new set of seals.

    toys19
    Free Member

    again avid composite pistons crumble at the edges and eventually give up, stainless ones would be nice.

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    Im not certain that stainless pistons would offer anything good to shimano brakes, surely heat transfer would be increased?

    toys19
    Free Member

    Hmm it might be that using a 3xx stainless steel may be ok as they have low thermal conductivity, I think this requires more thought. I dunno if they do use phenolics, the avid ones are some kind of reinforced plastic but defo not phenolic. Anyway this is moot as phenolics and most polymers have similarish very low thermal conductivities. It might be they used polymers for some other reason, possibly cost.

    Onzadog
    Free Member

    Did this take off at all?

Viewing 24 posts - 1 through 24 (of 24 total)

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