e39 rear calipers

[bmw2101]

do e39 rear brake calipers fit the e36 compact ?


Im after some buigger rear dia calipers, 38mm would be nice..

[therealpbgamer]

just saw another rear brake question. Our only choice is to upgrade our entire rear trailing arm/hub/rotor/caliper from a donor Z3m or z3m coupe

[BlackBMWs]

E34 rear brakes and carriers are a direct bolt on for the Ti rear. Larger piston than stock. Nice match up with a 325/328 Front vented setup. Bias stay balanced.

All assuming you are using good quality pads.

[therealpbgamer]

Wow. I've researched this quite a bit and found nothing about the 5/7 series rear swap till now.
Thank you so much for correcting my misinformation.
So this swap provides bigger pistons, and we can use the stock size rotor?

[BlackBMWs]

Yup. Running it now on my 97ti

Credit where credit is due, Ed at BimmerBum turned me on to this a few years ago. Ed's another great source of cool and practical things to do on our TI's. He has a website as well if you're needing BMW parts.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[therealpbgamer]

i know ive seen some older 5 series in the junkyard. I'll have to see if any 525 or 530 have the rear calipers still. I know i saw an old 535

[therealpbgamer]

are there vented rotors that fit with these calipers or do we have to maintain the stock solids?

Just curious because they have rear vented rotors available for the e34 a 1990 535i on Rockauto..but it may be a typo?

This is the model i may be sourcing mine from.

[BlackBMWs]

I'm running the stock solids which is what I believe was on the E34 I pulled mine from. It would be interesting to see if the rear vented and it's calipers/carriers fit our cars.

Ed may know...

[bmw2101]

i have 2 e34 calipers, but one of them has the bleed nipple snapped off, and i put a torques bit into it and that snapped off, so i cant drill it out ! So i was now wonering if i could use a e39 caliper in a e34 carrier...

there arnt any n/s e34/32 calipers on ebay atm, they only seem to be o/s ones!

[bmw2101]

btw some of my friends are using ford fieta/ka front calipers ont eh back with solid disks, 40mm pistons, but i dont want to start welding eh arm jsut yet!


I have 996 front calipers, now also, i hope the brake balance will be better but the handbrake is hydrolioc and struggles to lock some times, so bigger pistons would be welcome.

[therealpbgamer]

Originally Posted by BlackBMWs

I'm running the stock solids which is what I believe was on the E34 I pulled mine from. It would be interesting to see if the rear vented and it's calipers/carriers fit our cars.

Ed may know...

So i source rear calipers from a 89/90 525, and the piston is noticeably larger.
However, I bought brand new rotors and pads for the 318ti, and the pads won't fit into the caliper even after I pushed the piston in all the way, the pads are just too thick. they fit one at a time

Does the 525 caliper call for different size pads? Or do I need to sand my new ones down a bit?

[BlackBMWs]

Ah, I had been lucky enough to find E34 rear calipers with lightly used pads I used, so I have not replaced them yet.

Looking at RealOEM, the pads are different part numbers.

[therealpbgamer]

I think I'm going to try and salvage the pads, the were Pagid. I'm going to try a few other techniques to load the caliper when I get home.

[bmw2101]

since posting this, ive got a set of e46 330d calipers, im wondering about if they will fit the non vented carrier and put a spacer in there...


These are 42mm pistons, factory compact is 36 and the e34 is 38...

[therealpbgamer]

when i did my 330 fronts, I used the 330 caliper and carrier. When i did the e34 rear brakes, the e34 carrier wasn't a bolt on, i had to reuse my stock one.