Shimano flat mount calipers – the same front and rear?

Does anyone know if Shimano flat mount calipers are the same front and rear (just the caliper body, not all the adaptors, bolts etc.)

Or are the specific – they are sold and F and R but not sure if this is just the bits and bobs.

Mine came separate from the hoses, and looked identical. Made no particular effort to pick one for front or rear, as it would appear that it’s the adaptors (which ARE marked front/rear) that do this.

What you do need to watch for is the mounting bolts on the rear caliper – the length marked on these refers to the thickness of the frame, where the bolt passes through – NOT the length of the bolt itself. See page 31 of the http://si.shimano.com/pdfs/dm/DM-BR0004-05-ENG.pdf

the caliper is the same but the mountings are different for fork and frame so you always need an adapter for the front – it can be flipped for either 140 or 160 disc. For the rear, you need an adapter for 160 disc but I think (not 100%) that for 140 disc it bolts directly to the frame.

Rear is 160 mm with no adaptors.

Front is different mounting and on the Hope RX4 callipers the adaptor is built in.

[this says pretty much what Joe just said…]

I think they are the same but ..

– the front must use an adaptor/bracket for both 140 and 160 rotors. You just flip the adaptor to swap between the two sizes.

– whereas the rear bolts directly into the caliper, from underneath the chainstay, on the 140, and uses an adaptor for the 160.

Oops

Rear is 160 mm with no adaptors.

Must depend on the frame, as mine is 140mm with no adapters.

Sorry for the long hijack but bought a full set of flat mount calipers with flat bar levers  looked to have all fixtures fittings and mineral oil everything, so takes me part built bike to lbs for the kit to be fitted 3 days later pops in to shop and the lad fitted front brake and it worked a  ttreat but said there was a ferrule type thing missing saying he would order one for the rear,  fine I thought goes back a few days later  all done and dusted but needed 2 hydraulic kits which looked like olives and pipe inserts saying it’s what the brake pipes needed because they had to be cut I definitely know these where already in the brake kit. Then the punchline £48 . Does any of this sound like anything like the truth??

£48 for 2 olives and 2 inserts?  Or £48 for olives, inserts and cutting/fitting and bleeding?  Sounds strong, but thats prob less than an hour of workshop time once parts allowed for.  which is about right for the time it realistically takes.

£48 sounds perfectly reasonable for fitting and setting up 2 hydraulic brakes.

flatmounts and ‘mtb’ hydros use different hoses – that might be it?

the latest mtb brakes use the narrower bore hose (BH90, 2.1mm bore) whereas road/flatmount brkaes use the older 2.3mm bore (BH59).

If you want to run a flatbar setup with a flatmount frame, then you’ll need a pair of levers that are designed to use the BH59 hose i.e. older levers (there may be some new levers that still use the BH59 too but I don’t hold all that info in my mammalian brain).

Note the outer diameter of the BH90 and 59 hose is the same, so the olives are actually the same. It’s the inserts that are different.

the latest mtb brakes use the narrower bore hose (BH90, 2.1mm bore) whereas road/flatmount brkaes use the older 2.3mm bore (BH59).

Sorry, but that is incorrect.

and the correct version is…

Well 105, ultegra and dura ace brakes all use bh90 hose for a start. It only takes a quick look at the Shimano tech docs to see this.

Bought a full flat mount flat bar brake set up everything was in box olives inserts mineral oil everything he was a bit vague about what was missing just put 2 empty packets of hydrolic kits in empty brake kit box I didn’t know what a hydraulic kit was till I googled them. Just wish I’d bought a siringe and cup any took the time to do it myself. Tis the second and last time I’ve been pissed off by the lbs.

Yes, sorry. My mistake. The latest STI (9000, 8000, 7000) now use the BH90.

The older calipers

ST-RS505
ST-RS685
BR-RS505
BR-RS785
BR-RS805

(like I have) use the wider bore. They (Shimano) have obviously brought the road hoses in line with the mtb ones for the latest STI.

http://si.shimano.com/pdfs/dm/DM-BR0008-08-ENG.pdf

So which was it – £48 for parts and labour or £48 for parts?

£48 for parts and Labour, he first of all did one brake saying there was a ferrule type thing missing so he couldn’t do other brake when I went back to collect it he said he used 2 kits, how did he need 2 kits when he already done one of the brakes.

Maybe they had one in stock and used that on the first one?  Or if there were two missing originally he would have had enough to do both ends of the front, but needed two more to do the rear.

Were the olives and inserts that you supplied already fitted to the hoses, or were they loose?

£48 for parts and Labour,

Good value then.

Thanks for the info about the info belugabob, joe, pete and reggie 
<div class=”bbp-author-role”>Trying to figure out what works with what is quite confusing</div>

Rear is 160 mm with no adaptors.

Not on the last frame I build up, it was 140 straight onto the frame.