Where exactly is the brake compensator located?

[Fiat88]

Was looking under the car trying to find it as I'm doing my brake job and didn't see anything. Where should it be?

[NSDave]

Mine is currently laying on the garage floor , but maybe I can describe to you where you should find yours.
It should sit above the R/H end of the panhard bar, just aft of the axle. If you remove the right rear wheel, you should just be able to see two steel brake lines looping into it. It's held to the frame with three bolts/studs.
A 'removed' photo.

[zachmac]

[quote="NSDave"]It should sit above the R/H end of the panhard bar, just aft of the axle. If you remove the right rear wheel, you should just be able to see two steel brake lines looping into it. It's held to the frame with three bolts/studs.

By aft do you mean forward of? On my 80 FI car is it on the engine side (forward) side of the axle.

[Foster48x]

I've heard it's fairly common for PO's to bypass them instead of repairing them. Follow your rear brake lines back to the calipers, if they don't pass through that contraption NSDave has on his garage floor then it's missing.

Rick

[lasersailor]

Does anybody know where I can get a replacement rubber boot that goes over the end of the brake compensator? Mine is torn/unusable. Thanks.

[narfire]

Does anybody know where I can get a replacement rubber boot that goes over the end of the brake compensator? Mine is torn/unusable. Thanks.

Take a look at parts for sale section. Several at the moment being parted out.

[Fiat88]

I see it now! I'm probably gonna order a new one. Is it easy to replace?

[lasersailor]

I'm still in the middle of doing the replacement. Once you soak the nuts/bolts overnight, including the nuts attaching the brake lines to the compensator, things came apart pretty easily. The rod is straightforward to disconnect from the rear axle and the "grommet" that locates it to the underbody. After you get the remnants of the boot and the all the gunk removed (in my case 20 years of Florida beach sand mixed with mystery grease) it's more soaking of the rod/bushing/compensator with PB blaster and it should all come apart. You'll need the brass? bronze? bushing, bolt and locating washer from the old compensator to reinstall the rod in the new compensator.

And that's where I'm stuck at now waiting for a boot that should arrive soon. I hope to put it all back together this weekend. Let me know if you have more questions. I've got photos online at https://www.me.com/gallery/#100017.

Regards,

Jim
1980 Spider 2000

[Fiat88]

Jim,

Do you have to be a member to see the pics? I think I now understand how the thing comes out but now I'm not sure if I should replace it or not. Where did you order yours from? I noticed no one has the 4 bushings in stock.

[lasersailor]

Sorry about that...try this public link to the pictures at http://gallery.me.com/lasersailor

From the photos you'll see that the compensator was extremely corroded -- while removing the bushing the surrounding metal disintegrated into powder. I recommend getting a new compensator -- I purchased mine from IAP.

I admit that I'm stumped on the grommets, since I didn't find any when I disassembled the whole mess. Maybe mine are missing from a PO's previous repair? The only thing that I'd consider a grommet is the rubber sleeve inside the metal strap locating the rod to the drivers side of the underbody. That rubber sleeve is in good condition on my Spider.

Regards,

Jim

[Fiat88]

Sorry about that...try this public link to the pictures at http://gallery.me.com/lasersailor

From the photos you'll see that the compensator was extremely corroded -- while removing the bushing the surrounding metal disintegrated into powder. I recommend getting a new compensator -- I purchased mine from IAP.

I admit that I'm stumped on the grommets, since I didn't find any when I disassembled the whole mess. Maybe mine are missing from a PO's previous repair? The only thing that I'd consider a grommet is the rubber sleeve inside the metal strap locating the rod to the drivers side of the underbody. That rubber sleeve is in good condition on my Spider.

Regards,

Jim

Thanks for the photos, I'll take another look at my compensator.

[lasersailor]

Sure enough, there are no bushings remaining on my compensator linkage between the arm and the axle. It looks like they are part number 7 in drawing 57569415 in my photo gallery. I've also posted photos of the linkage there.

So, I've got some engineer friends that are wizards at sourcing these sort of bushings. Can anyone tell me what type of material they are? Rubber, vinyl, hard plastic, bronze, other? Inside and outside diameters? Shoulder dimensions? Tight or loose fit (if loose, how loose?) Any other descriptive information is appreciated, as well as photos of the OEM part.

Regards,

Jim

[ventura ace]

These are some pictures I took of the bushings that I found (Vick's, I think), back in 2007. It is a relatively hard rubbery plastic material that fits snuggly over the short steel sleeve.




Autoricambi carries it, but it may be out of stock right now: http://stores.auto-ricambi.net/-strse-1 ... Detail.bok

Sorry, this is all the information that I could find.

Alvon