Restoration question: Brake calipers & hardware

As I am about to replace a caliper on my '73 T, I stop and contemplate the idea of original hardware--The bolts that attach the caliper halves on the remfg. caliper are different than the original one (rounded head vs square head)--the bleeder screw is also different. If I'm thinking about a long term restoration, should I worry about these differences? Are there particular casting #'s that are correct for specific cars? The old caliper has a piston that is frozen, probably due to a little moisture--it could be honed out, but I don't hear of Porsche owners doing that--maybe I'm making much ado about nothing, but taking an original part off the car is a little disheartening. Thoughts??

It depends on which you value more, complete factory originality or functional dependibility. Is the car a 100-point concours garage queen or a sports car that's used for blowing out the week's cobwebs on a curvy backroad? The iron calipers on my '66 912 were so rusty when I bought it, I had to sandblast them just so I could see if they were worth rebuilding or not. They were-but I left the original bolts holding the caliper havles right where they were, cleaned the bores with 1000 wet sandpaper and WD-40, replaced the seals and the caliper mounting bolts with new grade 8 harware, and the bleed screws with new Dorman units.

One thing you could do for your long-term project is start 'collecting' all of the rusty, original fasteners on your car in a large 3-lb coffee can, after you clean them up. When it gets half-full, send them off for Cadmium plating ... and when you start your 'restoration' in earnest, you will have nice cad-plated harware with shiny, 8G, 10K, and 12K markings to replace all those non-original 8.8, 10.9, and 12.9 fasteners you put on it over the years! Of course, I kind of like the 'look' of stainless 304 nuts and bolts that don't rust!

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Warren Hall
1973 911S Targa