Hey, folks.

Back on the adventure/beater car here.

I figured out that the cold brake caliper/wheel was not due to a slightly bent brake line and was actually due to a very blown master cylinder seal. I replaced the MC, bench bled it, got to the very last wheel (admittedly should have been the first, but one was already up in the air)... and found that the caliper boot is seriously torn. I carefully used the brake pedal to pump the piston out and it is miraculously untouched except with a tiny bit of rust that wipes right off.

I figured I might just run down to a local parts store and get a boot in a kit. I cannot find *any* place that sells boots for the bendix calipers. I can but rebuilt calipers, but there are no boots available. Girling boots are available... slide pins and their boots are available. But the actual piston boots are just not anywhere at any brick and mortar. Even Rockauto only lists one option (CENTRIC 14339013). There is a wholesaler closeout caliper available for $40, but I have learned not to ever trust rebuilt brake calipers through a series of adventures with comments like "well, your core is already in the pile and you can't have it back even though the rebuilt one is defective and we can't get one here until 4 days from now."

Is this just how parts are getting now? Maybe IPD has one, but they're closed tomorrow and I wanted to button this up tonight.

I could order a boot/seal kit and wait for it to show up, as this is not my daily driver yet, but I'm planning on it being that until mid-summer. It would stink to be SOL for 3-7 days over something like this in the future.