1982 300CD, need orientation on bracket inside of front brake caliper

[gregp1962]

I took off the front caliper because I needed to replace the rotors. The brakes and calipers were working fine. Otherwise I would have replaced the pads leaving the caliper on. When I got the caliper off, it had this bracket inside of it between the pad and piston. I don't remember seeing this bracket in the how-to videos. Does anyone know what this is? The brackets seem to be rather bent up now. The rubber around the piston isn't so good either.

This is my daily driver and I was planning having the car working today. I'm not one of those people who has their car disabled for days at a time.

[Sugar Bear]

I'm pretty sure it just pushes into the hole in the piston. Its purpose is to protect the rubber boot/dust seal on the caliper piston. Replacement or rebuild of that caliper should be done as the boot is torn and the other protector is missing.

[Diesel911]

Both the Sheetmetal heat shields and the pistons have a particular orientation. There is some threads that have diagrams from the manual on them.

I go by 300Dman over on benzworld.org

I have ATE calipers front and rear.
I can't remember if they are front or rear calipers in the picture. But you can see there is a raised portion of the piston that goes in a specific direction as well as the heat shield. You should photograph or mark the orientation of those before you start.
https://www.benzworld.org/threads/rebuilding-brake-caliper.1996825/

Bendix caliper boots and pistons are installed slightly differently from the ATE ones.

People have also said rear rebuilt calipers are coming without heat shields and some rebuild kits for the rears don't have heat shields.

ATE caliper dust boot too large?