Hi
Spoke to the engineer today he said removing some of the banjo is doable as long as it doesnt then crush itself when tightened up.
In general conversation about the banjo and cv issue and handbrake runs i mentioned swapping sides which if it can be done he said wouldnt be an issue when i mentioned bleeding being a problem he replyed you bleed it back to front but its messy ! ie put the fluid thru the bleed nipple and the air comes out in the reservoir. (interesting)
Looks like a lot of thinking rather than action in the garage this w/e ?

How much approx in mm are peoples banjos from gaitors mine is literally 2-3mm from the highest point of steel clip.

Good news though one of the mechanics at work had a clutch line clip in his tool chest, top tip always secure the push fit connection with its clip before wasting an hour of your life trying to bleed it ! i wouldnt even have realised if i hadnt tried to pressurise it overnight and it went splat and blew off.

Nick M

The following image is the clearance obtained with 2mm removed from the top of the banjo bolt from RD


Clearance

The following image is a tool for machining the site where the banjo sits in the calliper 18mm OD and 12mm spigot. I had to purchase this tool from Tracy Tools as one of my banjo sites would not stop leaking. The site had machining marks from the manufacturer tht were no concentric to the copper washer. This fixed the leaking issue but the tool could equally be used to gain more space from the drive shaft boot.


Banjo seating tool

I am in two minds wheather to remove the calipers again and the risk involved in gaining another mm or so. However if my car fails the IVA because of this that is exactly what I will be doing.

I have done quite a few miles up and down the private road at my house and I see no evidence of the rubber boot touching the banjo. However at 100mph on the track perhaps but I doubt it I think 2-3mm clearance is adequate (for now!)

Thanks
Still thinking it thru might ring Jeremy and see if there is any caliper that bolts straight on if i could get reasonable money for the vw calipers it might not be that painful as a quick search shows up brand new calipers for various fords for £50 ish.
I have various vw cables for the h brake which only need a slight file of the plastic crimps to fit the mechanism but again if i use a ford caliper it will make life easier

Nick M

Is the bleeding problem when you swap sides due to the nipple facing downwards at the bottom of the caliper? If so this is just the arrangement on independent rear suspension Furys. The answer is to take the caliper off, fix a block of wood in place of the pads and disc, suspend the caliper as high as you can with the the nipple uppermost and then bleed in the normal way.

Hi
Just weighing up options at the moment if they were able to be put on opposite sides i presume they would need to be upside down this would mean issues with bleeding but would solve the akward handbrake runs and the banjo/gaitor issue.

Havent had a chance to look today but did spend 1/2 hr looking for the clutch line circlip that was a pig to put in that then decided to ping to who knows where !!!!

First job next time find the f***ing clip.

Nick M

Hi nick,

Third pic down on my latest blog shows the milled banjo.....my guess is at least 4mm thick...it will never crush. The only thing you need to be careful of is to not mill down to where the banjo connector is attached to circular bit.

To be honest, even if you can take 2-3mm off the bolt head, it would probably be fine......I think 2mm is too close, but, 4-5mm would seem sensible.


P.

Hi
Read Jenkos post ref the vw passat banjo this could be the way forward especially for others who havent had lines made up yet found some brand new on e-bay £11.00 each. Might chance my arm on them have tried ringing the firm to find out what the connection is at the other end but no joy but im sure there will be some form of connector to join up the new line or a manufacturer of lines who can put the relevant connector on for me.
Measured the banjo connection on at the moment and it stands proud of the caliper by 20mm.

Found clutch line clip and 1 hr later i tried brute force rather than finesse and mangled it !!!! isnt it amazing the haynes manual just says "insert clip"

Thanks

Nick M

I contacted HEL Performance on ebay, they make custom brake hoses. They have a M12 x 9mm thick banjo saving about 3mm on the standard RD part. I took a chance and ordered a couple.

Have you got the part no please ?

Thanks

Nick M

They have no part No you have to specify the length and the ends as follows:

Length 320mm (in my case)
12mm x 9mm banjo on one end
3/8" x 24 unf bulkhead male convex union on the other (my brakes are all unf specify metric if that is what you used)
Colour clear
With M12 x 1mm ss banjo bolts (because that is what Passat use I will have to check they fit, he has others)

24hrs order to delivery they arrived this afternoon I will try and fit them tomorrow.

In my opinion the bolts heads will have to be turned down to get optimum clearance they will give 3mm extra clearance as they are.

I will take pictures of the assembled parts. I am very impressed with the quality I am considering getting them to make me others for the front.

I installed the HEL part and I can now report complete success (at least on one side). The gap was 3.5mm and is now 8.5mm with ~2mm removed from the head of the Banjo bolt. The other side was always the problem one but I should get at least 6mm clearance there too. The boot changes clearance as it rotates and expands at speed.


HEL Banjo


Passat caliper + HEL

I think this issue has finally been put to bed, thanks for acting as my surrogate IVA man, I guessed if I could satisfy your critical eye then I would not incur any comment from the dreaded VOSA man.

Thanks
I will probably do the same with HEL but have to check this w/e as my closest point is the boot clip and banjo but the rubber gaitor further down the d/shaft sticks out further than the metal clip so need to make sure that the braided line wont interfere with the rubber boot.
May gain a mm or 2 with the caliper symmetrical fitting with the disc on the upright as well.

If i ever manage to get the clutch line clip in !!!

Nick M

It doesn't help with the banjo clearance issue but what I did to get a more favorable handbrake cable run was the swap the internals of the calipers. That leaves the bleed nipples at the top but the handbrake actuating lever then runs below the caliper.

I checked the actuation wasn't 'handed' because the actuator will move in the opposite direction and that seemed fine. I swapped the unit inside the caliper that pushes out the pads as they wear because I couldn't be sure this wasn't handed. You have to re-mount the bracket that holds the outer handbrake cable as well.

All seems to work fine but the only thing I found was that the handbrake seems to brake one side slightly more than the other but that could be the pads not bedding in yet or some contamination on one disk. I can adjust it out with the cables anyhow so shouldn't be a big deal.

I don't understand all this. How can it be so beneficial to my car which uses similar parts to yours and you gain nothing!!!. The fundamental difference must be drive shafts. What drive shafts are you using?

I had the driveshafts custom made but the CV joints are from a Mk6 Fiesta.

Try tightening them up!

quote:

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Originally posted by theprisioner
I don't understand all this. How can it be so beneficial to my car which uses similar parts to yours and you gain nothing!!!. The fundamental difference must be drive shafts. What drive shafts are you using?

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I think you will regret putting the calliper upside down apart from the bleeding issue there may be an issue of where any air collects in the system. The routing issue is not that bad once you get your head round it. Either use something to bind the cable in a route that will never contact the various bits of use a preformed pipe to guide the cable.

Agree......But.......(I think from what I can remember), the caliper remains the same (so bleed nipple will remain where it is). He's just swapped the connection bracket from one side to another plus some internals...... Again, I'll wait for Chris to confirm this, but this is how I understand it.

Yes thats right. I wanted to avoid turning the caliper upside down for just those reasons. I saw somewhere that these calipers are a nightmare to bleed anyway. Think I saw the VAG fitting instructions which say they should be filled with fluid before fitting - or I may have dreamt that bit!
It was just the handbrake cable mounting hardware and the arm itself which got swapped over.