The.Analyst said:
Several iterations
Base idea was based on an idea published my P Morelli and A N Other on US based BBs.
Two different 3 series F upgrade caliper brackets were purchased to see how they did it.
Based on one of those I created a variation that addresses the unique issues on the E89..ie old E85 style rear suspension but electronic parking brake from the 5 series.
Two versions one for 345mm old 5 series E rear disc and a 370mm 7 series F rear disc. Same caliper different adapter bracket.
Some iterations to get the pads to line up perfectly with the available swept area of the discs.
All the adapter brackets we saw used ‘standard’ size holes for the bolts..ie for 12mm bolts 13mm holes.
What we found is that there is too much slop in those sizes compounded by the fact that we are using 4 bolts now not 2
The stock hold clearance BMW uses is much tighter..about 0.5mm vs 1mm.
Advice from folks who have built many of these brackets across a wide range of cars is to try and get that as tight as possible.
We’ve taken it down to 0.3mm and about to try 0.0 (screw threads on bolt just under 12mm)
Also the design relied on spacer washers to align the caliper cradle with the disc..different disc offset different thickness of washers.
All these issues means there is a considerable loosening torque on the bolts.
The first long road test had to be cut short as the caliper cradle bolts were loosening off..
In part due to a lack of a proper lock washer like bmw used, in part due to lack of loctite, in part due to loose hole sizes and inpart due to lack of torque on the bolts as the washers settled down.
So our next iteration is a 15mm thick rather than 12mm thick design with milled areas to obviate the need for spacers..plus Nord lock washers, tighter hole tolerances and use of 12.9 rather than 10.9 bolts and nuts.
In addition it looks with the 370mm version that the caliper cradle can be milled to gain enough clearance rather than a piece cut out of it…which will please some folks ..