Stainless Steel GM Brake Caliper Pistons

[@JDX123]

I am a retired person who stumbled on Adams channels years ago. I have learned so much from you!

[@ThomasPerry-ki3wt]

Adam your shop, your money, your way. Ignore the haters and trolls. Awesome channel. I watch you and CEE.

[@anthonyrivers8395]

❤the FRANA PROJECT

[@Citizenhuman66]

Yes; my two favorites, Abom and cee

[@Citizenhuman66]

@@anthonyrivers8395 both very dedicated and precise guys

[@williegillie5712]

@@ThomasPerry-ki3wt my two fav channels are Abom79 and CEE

[@Citizenhuman66]

@@ThomasPerry-ki3wt homeless ❤️

[@9fa4108f]

Thanks for showing the process from start to finish in a single video 🙏

[@jameskilpatrick7790]

Yeah, Abom's starting to hit his stride with the CNC. It's really cool to see an accomplished manual machinist add that capability to his toolbox. I mean yes, it's different machines taking up half of the shop, (or more), but the time savings with multiple parts, especially parts that have a lot of operations, justifies it right away. Well done, Adam!

[@deserado11]

... starting to sound like a CNC man Adam ... can hear the confidence and enthusiasm coming through loud and clear

[@RobertGracie]

Doesnt matter the job, you always find a way to do it Adam, its always a joy to watch you work in the shop if its manual or CNC machining!

[@davidmspinelli8951]

Adam, I have been watching your videos since you were working for somebody else. All I can say is that your grandfather and father are proud of you. Well done young man!

[@Abom79]

I appreciate the kind words, it means a lot!

[@waikanaebeach]

Great work Adam, I been following you for 7 years and enjoyed every episode.

[@CothranMike]

I, for one, appreciate your ability to control the sound so well that I didn't have to have any kind of control at my end. Additionally, I think you're doing great and the work you and Kevin are doing for your training seems to be producing wonderful results. Your confidence level has increased as time on the machines has passed. You are to be congratulated by one and all, so congratulations! Kind words aside, you are doing better than several I knew who converted to CNC/CAD/CAM in years well past last century, looking back of course. Tell Abby her adviser role is doing the job, no prodding was needed as you are a willing partner in your continuing education of life, the world, and well, everything.

[@andywithers592]

Those are some monster pistons! Excellent workmanship as ever.

[@michaeldurling793]

Another step forward on your journey Adam as your confidence increases you acquire another tool in the toolbox and we all know you can never have to many tools.

[@mikerodent5205]

You, sir, are Rembrandt in metal.the pure beauty of you work tears me up. There is no way you could put a price on these masterpieces. Beyond impressed. Thank You.

[@williegillie5712]

I’m glad you polished the pistons. The smoother ya get em the better they seal. Stainless was a smart idea. Keep the rust down. It’s quite common to have several cars of the same make with the same sized pistons. I’ll bet the parts store wouldn’t mind buying some from you. Remember to put that abom79 logo trademark on them.

[@stevebumstead9840]

I had a machine shop teacher back in the 70's that said "If it works it's right" Nice job Adam.

[@betterbackwards2701]

Haven't watched for a while. Fantastic content Abom. Great to see the old head adapting to the new.

[@mrmongo6722]

Thanks for sharing this video it makes for a fortunate viewer and his son. That you had an interesting project to work on and concur I can only imagine the things you build for around your house. You would either be that guy who starts a home improvement project and go to a hardware store and screw I can build it and ten times better.

[@larrycleeton]

The hole in the center of the piston is where a mechanical parking brake mechanism bolts into the back side of the piston, inside the caliper. Having disc brakes on the rear axle of a car requires some way to provide a parking/emergency brake. On this vintage GM rear disc brake caliper the engineers included it in the caliper. There is a lever on a shaft that comes out the back of the caliper, hooked to the parking brake cables. There are threads that push the piston out when the lever is pulled. Adam mentioned that the specific pattern of indents on the piston are there for a tool that rotates the piston as it is pushed into the caliper during servicing. The piston needs to rotate on the threads in the internal mechanism or it won't retract.

[@williamskirvin2211]

Always outstanding work!!!!!!!

[@arnoldsmachinetool4632]

Coming from a 100% manual job shop. Watching you expand your shop and knowledge of cnc machinery is a wonderful adventure to me. I learned a great deal from your new format of video. Thank you for taking the time to share in such detail. PS: that new fangled CNC stuff is just a passing fad 😂😂 manual machines will be king again one day 😅😂

[@Horus9339]

Those parts looked beautiful, well done Adam. The programming must have been quite some task, well worth it for the end results.

[@transmitterguy478]

I've never seen a brake caliper piston with a hole in it. Great job Adam.

[@billdunlop8683]

Great job Adam, Making brake caliper pistons looking like a piece of art.

[@just.some.dud3]

Good stuff, Adam. Always enjoy going along for the ride as you expand your CNC knowledge. :)

[@ronnydowdy7432]

Looks very professional

[@johnplump3760]

Hello Adam: I have become addicted to your channel. Watching how you are mastering the new C&C lathe is quite a learning experience.\I also watch Leo restore and old sailing boat and the great skill that he shows. You have the same talent. It is a pleasure to watch you work.

[@angelramos-2005]

A great CNC job down,Adam.Thank you.

[@danmooney7192]

There's no way you could do the lathe operations on a manual lathe in under 3 minutes! what a time saver!

[@retrohipster1060]

The other cool part about this is that I'm positive other people that could use those calibers are probably going to be contacting you. Now that you have your CNC program dialed in you really should be able to knock these things out for some easy money. 👍

[@keithmitchell4193]

Hey Adam love the content. From one machinist to another I learned to space the chuck up so the chips and flood coolant have a space to flow out.

[@briantate8656]

This what I wanted to see , the cnc style machine used in a one or two part processes!!! Manual machine can be fun but it’s nice to not have to stand on your head to make a part sometimes .

[@MachineryConsultantsIncUSA]

Those turned out super Nice, Great Machining as usual, You Ate that Stainless Job & didn't Leave any Crumbs.. Well Done

[@danielesilvaggi]

I would take 2 of those if you want to sell them as I have a 1980 Camaro with a 1979 Trans Am rear end in it. Those are the same caliper pistons I have. Please let me know. I am also from Windsor, Ontario, Canada and my name is Danny as well lol. Just finished watching the 2nd op and they are looking really good. Great job Adam.

[@waynep343]

In the 1980s I was kept busy adjusting the same rear calipers on Cadillac Eldorado and Seville. Seemed I was the only guy in my area that could do it.

[@scrappy7571]

I worked at a Pontiac back then. Firebirds and fieros had these calipers. Really bad design, and eventually GM had a recall to install new pistons with teflon coating to help with staying in adjustment. It really did not fix the issue. Typical GM crap, too little too late.

[@M5888-z3w]

It takes time to learn to CNC but you are doing great

[@mfc4591]

Nice job. It must have taken some time to set up the program. I remember polishing pistons by hand just to have a perfect finish as we did not have equipment available to do it with machine help. With these tools and tech, it's a relief to the wrists!

[@1320pass]

No doubt you could've spun those up just as beautiful on the manual machines but very cool to see the CNCs work too. Getting more and more proficient. 👌

[@nicklong9985]

Good job Adam👍

[@josephford8884]

Classic Abom79 fit and finish. Congratulations Adam, for your progress and the fine products. Beautiful work.

[@josephford8884]

And no small matter: You've got the code to make more of these. Bravo.

[@jean-michelgervaiseau743]

Merci pour cette vidéo toujours très intéressante, excellent travail.

[@jonmcgovern5266]

Really enjoy your channel! I don't read all of the comments on your videos so someone else has probably made this suggestion. Go to your local window washing supply house and get a few 6-8 inch squeegees. They are great for cleaning chips and cutting fluid off of your machine flat surfaces. The squeegees are cheap and fast and you don't have to worry about metal chips getting stuck in a paint brush. I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Keep those great post coming!

[@CothranMike]

Great idea, sometimes the holes in the universal fixture tables have plugs, your idea would work best with those in place. Here though an air blast clears those fixture holes well enough and a squeegee might get torn by the chips caught in those unplugged holes. Most folks will use air in a job shop since time is money and you are not paid to plug and replug holes for each setup. Edited for clarity and typos.

[@billyring4]

Great job as always. Enjoyed the video.

[@dlancello]

Really awesome knife! Best one I’ve seen in a long time.

[@rionstretton8133]

Great work as usual ❤

[@peterlee8982]

Fantastic work. Great to watch the machines at work. Well done.

[@outsidescrewball]

"how sweet is that”…well said!!!! Enjoy your discussion and build

[@davidsmethurst4318]

NIce one. I actually like the manual and CNC mix and this was a good example of a more complex job than some you have done. On your beautiful manual machines you'd have been going DRO and taper crazy. Looks like you've really thought about presenting it to lay people like me. Less of the pointing at screens and more of the order of operations and logic of it all. And the narrative really puts over the idea that a CNC can do fantastic work but only if a pro with all the nuance of an expert machinist tells it what to do.

[@bertblankenstein3738]

Abom seems to be getting a lot more proficient with the CNCs.

[@MyLilMule]

Very entertaining video. I enjoyed watching the journey so far.

[@pennypincher6730]

Adam id contact John D Loren at 2nd gen graveyard which specializes in 70 to 81 firebirds new and used parts. He may be interested in purchasing a few sets for his inventory.

[@CothranMike]

Great idea, stainless replacements last a long time on the shelves he might want a gross of them since these are used on several versions and on different models. Edited to add, with minor mods, these programs can be run for other, differently sized parts, an endless source of one offs or restocking ideas.

[@Maximusprimeatyahoo]

Beautiful work Adam.

[@waynespyker5731]

They used to sleeve classic car caliper housing bores with stainless in the 90s to remove the rot created from the brake fluid acids. This is good housings and rotted pistons! They will never see road salt.

[@TheGrimReaper1]

I like stainless steel, I even bought a box of stainless steel screws to make a flower box for the garden, they were dear but i have forgotten the price already.

[@gregdawson1909]

Insert drills are great especially on the lathe, you use it to punch a hole then as a booring bar with the outside insert doing the work.

[@dizzolve]

wow those came out really nice

[@snicks50]

You can still get them. My local Oreilly's has them along with my local Napa.

[@RustyInventions-wz6ir]

Very neat work mister

[@larry3064]

Very nicely done

[@revtmyers1]

I loved this. On a side note, maybe a long shot, does anyone remember who Adam used to het some calipers repaired. My father passed away a few years ago, and I have a pair of his Mitutoyo that I would love to get restored.

[@hwesson75]

I believe it was M.R. Tool Repair

[@johnkraus728]

Looks amazing! Appropriate work for a Silver Anniversary T/A with 4 wheel discs.

[@brucemadden1626]

Very nice work, especially in SS. I am rather surprised rockauto does not have these in stock(not SS) since the transam was/is such a popular car.

[@thomaschandler8036]

Good job Adam, enjoy watching that CNC....

[@theessexhunter1305]

Thant is more like what these machines a meant for. nice job

[@digger_jon2778]

i am so freaking in awq right now Adam i have watched you from the begining bad lighting hardly anything nowe you have a full on business and your not the employee you own this and you deserve it ...hard work pays off god bless from oregon

[@minigpracing3068]

I'm seeing one each side caliper on Rock Auto, but international shipping, plus returning the cores, and they will still be common steel. This is a classic case where buying upgraded brake systems makes sense. I probably would have nickel plated the steel pistons to fight corrosion if I wanted to keep it stock.

[@marksmith6776]

Great Work. Keep up the good work!

[@RobertKohut]

Nice!! Your CNC skills are improving a great deal!! 🙂

[@luckgrip252]

I'm happy to see the progress you've made combining both CNC Mill and CNC Lathe. I myself too am working on CNC machines, the machines we're using are from HAAS, Mill is VF-2 SSYT, Lathe is ST20Y and I am working on both of them, it's fun to complete the jobs on different machines. Previously I was working mainly on Doosan Puma Swiss-Lathes fulfilling high quantity orders and loved it, wish to go back there, RnD is getting boring for me, I want to do some manufacturing which has higher quantity orders and fixtures would make sense a whole lot more :D I'm just a young machinist who started working on these machines at age 19, currently I'm 22 years old, loving the trade myself, always wanting to improve, to move on to something more difficult/advanced :D Also, if you had active tools in your lathe for these pockets, the parts could have been made in 3 operations technically, but who am I kidding, these active tool holders cost an arm and leg, so either way this way in which you did this project was more suitable for what you have and it didn't need any of before mentioned things really. I truly believe that it was a great fun for you to exercise on and I'm happy that you had fun ;D Keep on rockin'!

[@jwdickinson1]

ya need to put a small maker’s mark on the back face!

[@PaulStaples-h2f]

Great video you should stamp the inside back with your name, amazing skills but not to sure about the chamfer at 5 thou i would have done 1 thou, as over time, the extractor that backs out the piston when changing pads will slip out. Absolutlu amazing video, keep up the good work and have a great day.

[@Jacktheflex]

Great teacher👍

[@utidjian]

Very nice Adam. That kind of part... basically pretty simple but with fiddly details and reasonable tolerances are where CNC really come out well for short run or job shop applications. I just looked up 1979 Pontiac Transam rear calipers (I wanted to see how the assembled part looked) and it appears that both left and right rears are available at about US$70 each. So I dunno. At least those stainless pistons should hold up MUCH better than the chrome plated units. I have repaired older classic (1930s-1960s) cars where the wheel cylinders, calipers, and master cylinders are no longer available at all and have had good success with stainless re-lining of cylinder bores and pistons made from stainless. Good project for you... but as someone once said, "That isn't a project!... that's a product." ;-)

[@Airman..]

Bro can replicate the metal sheen Beautiful job 👏

[@waynep343]

The deep notch prevents the piston from rotating as the parking brake lever is applied there is a pressed part way thru the pad backing plate locator .. The 4 round notches are clearance for the mushroomed over brake pad rivets that are proud of the back of the brake pad . The hole in the middle gets a high temp buna plug. Inside the piston is another piston with a seal to stop brake fluid from leaking under pressure as the inner piston has to rotate to adjust the pad clearance to the rotor. When the pads wear the brake pedal ends up with excessive travel and eventually no braking. If the parking brake Lever moves more than 7/16 of an inch off the hard stop the brake calipers need adjusting.

[@waynespyker5731]

Excellent!

[@--_DJ_--]

I can't say I have ever worked on that particular caliper (or age of disc brake system), but I have never seen a caliper that required any sort of adjustment for the service brakes to function properly. The fluid in the piston is the adjustment. I haven't even seen an integrated parking brake that required adjustment for pad wear, but I can see that being a thing in an older vehicle. When you say the pedal ends up with excessive travel, do you mean the brake pedal or the parking brake pedal?

[@philbert006]

​@@--_DJ_-- if you push your brake pads too long, you may notice more travel in the pedal, but its such a gradual increase that its difficult to notice. So, especially in an aftermarket situation, if the pads see excessive wear, you may have problems with pedal travel depending on how the pedal is set or even worse potentially, really low btake fluid level, as it requires more fluid to displace the volume of the wrn away brake pad. But its a ststem. Everything affects these things. Brake line size and length, master cylinder diameter and stroke, number and size of the pistons, reservoir volume, so on and so forth. Encountering the problems mentioned above is pretty unlikely in a factory system, but if you start changing and upgrading parts without consideration of every component of the system, those issues could very well appear. An older system would very likely have provision for mechanical adjustments also, as opposed to a more modern system that likely is controlled and adjusted by an abs module at the least. I reckon it's just as deep or shallow of a rabbit hole as you care to explore. That other fellow up there def has some in depth knowledge about this specific setup. Whether from experience or just a google know it all, we cant know. But he is definitely pretty spot on.

[@--_DJ_--]

​@@philbert006 The only time you would have more pedal travel is when the pads don't grab as well as they did when new. But that is a function of more effort needed to stop, not an out of adjustment condition. Calipers, by their nature, are constantly self adjusting for pad and rotor wear. The exception to that is an extremely warped rotor causing the pads/piston to be pushed back as the high spot on the warped rotor rotates. That would give more pedal travel as the fluid needs to be replaced to its previous volume before it can clamp the rotor. You could have a 1 inch brake line, or a 10 foot brake line, it would make no difference to pedal travel once established. Running low on brake fluid is the only way you would get excessive pedal travel in a disc brake system that was at one point functioning properly, and has undamaged parts in it. ABS absolutely does not adjust anything, it does nothing more than essentially pump the brakes for you when it detects a wheel is about to lock up, or has locked up. There is no rabbit hole as far as service brakes go. The only question was about the parking brake function. Looking at a breakdown of the caliper in question, it doesn't seem like he is spot on at all. (I am a dual licensed mechanic of 20+years experience for both automotive and heavy trucks)

[@duroxkilo]

@@--_DJ_-- i vaguely remember "adjusting" brake pistons by rotating them to accommodate new/thicker pads.. some could be pressed in but some needed 'screwing in'... but i'm not a mechanic i just used to hang out at my uncle's shop who always seem in need of 5 more employees :)

[@henrikpedersen5857]

Love the Diresta icepick cameo 😉

[@teipplestar5586]

nice work flow, cnc and manual lathe augmenting in their respective space.

[@bertppichon2684]

Very interesting, thanks

[@ThwimpThwomp]

measuring that dual bevel is why you need an optical comparator.

[@elmarqo_3448]

CNC is great. It can make some sweet parts and crash in a hurry.

[@TorgeirFredriksen]

Great video and impressive results. My greatest concern was tightening those thin cylinder walls on the 3 jaws, but hopefully they remained perfectly round

[@ggcutter4098]

Nice work

[@garychaiken808]

Great job. Thank you 😊

[@blacksupra10]

workshop to die for. for most people anyway!

[@CraigLYoung]

Thanks for sharing 👍

[@kevins5259]

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.

[@GroovyVideo2]

Thanks for showing

[@iexcedo6918]

Good luck adding a indexable drill to fusion an also use it as a boring bar in the same operation. I had to max a custom form tool just to trick it. It's the main reason I dropped fusion to go back to Mastercam

[@a.bakker64]

Nice job, complex product, dito footage. I have just one critisism and that is contaminating the ss with coolant and tools that were used on steel. I had to change the coolant and use new tools, working on stainless.

[@TorgeirFredriksen]

Get real... maybe for a production run but not for a couple of parts like this

[@kenjay3490]

Hey Adam! I was severely hoping you would imprint the internal ‘head’ with your Abom trademark!!! 🤷‍♂️😂

[@6spdkeg]

So good.. .

[@MachineryConsultantsIncUSA]

Good job Adam on the Commentary BTW....

[@cannamay1986]

I like that chuck key on ur cnc mill I'm sure it's at an angle so u don't bottom out the handles on the mc bed....if u know u know 😉

[@CothranMike]

Yup I remember when he acquired that low profile chuck, and a few others as well, great piece of equipment and wonderful for a used one. Edited for spelling and typos

[@gordonquigley2267]

Chuckey

[@chrisbalise4995]

I use El Dorado Calipers on my 1980 K30 pulling truck with rear disc brake conversion and these look exactly like the pistons in those (I believe there is two different sizes though). It's not a big market, but if you decide to do a run of these, myself and I'm sure others would be interested (especially since my truck sits for long periods in the off-season). I would just need to verify my piston diameter.

[@sccolbert]

Sounds like you spent more on tooling and learning than the job was worth. I often do the same thing (but I'm in a different field). I consider it re-investment in the business.

[@philbert006]

He said it was for a subsciber. He likely isnt charging him at all. Just for interesting video content. He has done so many times, and has manufacturer support and sponsorship on the machines and probably a lot of the tooling as well. I think he is probably just sharing because he finds it interesting and is happy to help the people that support him by watching and enable him to be in such a position. His way of giving back.

[@crossbowhunter9118]

He said milltronics 20 times in the video. He wanted to use them in order to keep is free machines

[@williamparry9314]

Great vid, shame they will not be seen.

[@jameswood9764]

Ready to bolt on soft jaws are available in a block form ready for machining? Should machine the grooves as the first lathe operation when the part has the most material for rigidity to hold part in chuck..

[@Birdhouseboi810]

It’d be cool to make a camera mount to the door handle on the cnc mill. That way you don’t have to hold the camera when you have the camera filming outside of the mill.

[@sonnyboy2273]

Great Job - Great Video.....

[@bpedoniquott7971]

Just interested...😊

[@qzwqsy]

Very nice