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What difference between the Fist Caliper and the Floating Caliper?

Motor Vehicle Maintenance & Repair Asked by MiniMax on January 29, 2021

I have downloaded the brake pad fitment instruction from the ATE site and have discovered the third type of caliper – the Fist Caliper. I know that the Floating Caliper and the Fixed Caliper are. There are a lot information about them on the internet, for example the good demonstration video: Fixed vs Floating Caliper.

But I can’t found the good Fist Caliper explanation.

One document I have found – Brake caliper types, but it doesn’t explain the difference between Fist and Floating calipers.

I own the Opel Astra H by 2011 year of production, with stock ATE brakes, so I want to understand, what calipers it has (definitely not “Fixed Caliper”), and therefore, what part of ATE manual I should follow.

The questions: how the Fist Caliper works and how it is different from the Floating Caliper?


Instruction from ATE site as an image:
enter image description here

2 Answers

A fixed caliper has two pistons, one on each side of the brake disk. The piston and pad on each side work independently.

A fist caliper only has a piston on one side. The whole caliper assembly slides in a housing to equalize the pressure on both brake pads.

See here for cross section drawings. The drawing shows how it looks similar to a person's fist squeezing the pads on each side of the disk.

A fist caliper and a floating caliper both work exactly the same way. The only difference is the detail of how the caliper is supported. It can slide in a slot, or slide on mounting pins or bushes.

Answered by alephzero on January 29, 2021

There are actually two types of sliding calipers. Fist-style calipers are two piece calipers with one part providing the squeezing force and the other holding the caliper in place (and the pads). The second is a floating caliper. Typically there are large pieces of metal that are permanently attached to the spindle/suspension. You mount the pads on these and then the caliper on top. For reference, 1993-1997 Camaros had floating calipers. 1998 on up had fist-style calipers (as did corvettes).

Answered by Con FUse on January 29, 2021

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