Has anyone ever swapped brake calipers between models?

I don't know why I create so much work for myself :uhoh: but what I started to do is swap wheels from a 2001 Taurus wagon to my 1996 Taurus wagon. The 2001 has styled 16" factory alloys and the 1996 has factory steel wheels with hub caps. I'm swapping for appearence reasons only.
What I ran into is the 2001 Taurus has larger brake calipers on the front wheels and the 15" wheel from the 1996 wont fit over it. The rear wheels fit just fine.
From research I did on this site and others I've found that brake size changed on the front wheels in 2001.
My question is...Does anyone know if I can swap the front brake calipers from a 1996 Taurus GL to a 2001 Taurus SE and vice versa?
At a glance they look like the same mounting configuration but I don't want to find out the hard way that they are slightly different. :headshake

Regards,

TaurusGLenn

So you need to be able to put the 15" wheels on the 2001? Does the owner of the 2001 know you are taking their wheels and now brakes?

I would suspect if the rotor diameter is larger on the 2001, you'll need to change out the steering knuckles, rotors, and calipers between the two vehicles along with the wheels. And even then you may run into the splines on the halfshafts being different, etc.

You could try pulling up the various parts on an online parts store (Autozone, Advance Auto, etc.) and compare part numbers of the various parts between the two model years. If the part numbers are different, you'll probably need to swap from one vehicle to the other.

-Rod

Now I see why you're the moderator, Shorod! You think of everything. It never occured to me to ask the owner of the 2001 if I could take his wheels and brakes. Hehee :iceslolan
Actually both cars are mine. The 2001 is my beater with one wheel in the grave and my 1996 is my garage queen with only 70k on it. Looks even sweeter with the new wheels.
I was able to swap the calipers and rotors pretty easily. Everything else was able to stay where it was. So now my 1996 is rolling on 2001 sixteens. PimpWagon. lol :naughty:

TaurusGLenn

Glad you got it figured out, and there won't be someone posting a thread, "WTB: 16 inch wheels and brakes for 2001 - Someone stole mine!!!"

-Rod