what year? 2 or 4WD? See, one other thing we found out the hard way is guys don't want to mess with hubs if there is a unicast rotor that will allow a straight bolt on job.
I'm just the opposite! I have come to really like the non-unicast rotors! That way I don't have to mess with wheel bearings whenever I do something to the brakes - I can leave the wheel bearings all clean and sealed up while I take everything else apart. I can even bolt the wheel back on and leave the rotor off. Tim D.
There is/was no bolt on Disc brake replacement for my 55, so I cut my own hub and caliper mounting plate, and used off the shelf parts for the rest of my front disc brake installation on the 55 DeSoto in my Avatar. The most amazing part is that I didn't need to change ANYTHING else in the system...I'm using the Stock Kelsey-Hayes booster/master cylinder. Once I got it done and bled, I drove it up and down the driveway to see how everything worked...fully well expecting to have to change/add a whole bunch of stuff. Not the case at all! The brake system operates beautifully, and I have put thousands of miles on it. No proportioning valve, no different master/booster, no change/difference in pedal travel or pressure, etc. and the car stops as straight as an arrow...with the discs in front and the Stock drums in back...
Amen, this is what we used on our 53 Plymouth as well, along with a set of "standard" GM A body calipers. The Jeep Rotors are a perfect fit on the hub, have enough offset for any wheel, and are used on 4000+ lb Jeep Grand Cherokees as well, so they can surely handle the weight of an early 50's Mopar. The Jeep rotors in question fit the XJ Cherokees, ZJ (1993 to 1998) Grand Cherokees, and TJ (1997 to 2005) Wranglers
4 wd drive are top hat style as noted in my original post. I am ot familiar with grand cherokee, but a check of part numbers would tell the tle.
i drive a 98' grandcherokee 4x4 and the rotors are top hat style. hope the aftermarket ones are better than factory mine all warped at 21,000 mile and shook so bad i had no choice but to turn them or my ****ing teeth were going to shake out of my head.
Great thread! Something to throw out there.....78-87 GM midsize G body more or less has the same front suspension & brakes as an S10. I dunno if the calipers are the same, but they're at least real similar....... And because of the dirt trackers, there's overbored G body calipers anywhere that carries US brake, and they do wonders for pedal feel and stopping power. Building around such a caliper would provide another degree of flexibility to the end user's brake system design. Good luck!
Most of our customers are not HAMBers... and some are scared to death of machine shops. Also, quite a few machine shops won't touch hubs due to "liability". For us, the lower demand items using the drum hubs eliminates a lot of work.
Domepiece, you probably know about this , BUT, we made brackets for corvette calipers by putting a little bit of air into the calliper so it was tight against the rotor. Then make the bracket. WE brazed an air fitting to the tubing nut.
This is Gonna be really helpful... anyone have anymore experience with the jeep cherokee rotors??? From what Ive read it sounds like I wont have to have any machining done, is this true???
Depends on what you call machining. The mopar front brake drum is riveted to the hub. The ideal is to remove the rivets and seperate the two. The rotor then slips over the studs, if they are present. Dodge rims typically have studs. Plymouth rims used lug bolts threaded into hubs. So if you are dealing with Plymouth hubs, you probably want to have the lug bolt holes drilled out to remove the threads and then have regular studs pressed in . A machine shop would probably seperate the drum hub ***embly with their stuff easier then grinding and hammering out the rivet. I can not tell you 100% that the jeep rotor fits exactly over the hub center or whether they need clearencing. The rotors will self center over the studs when sandwiched between the wheel and the hub. Suppose if you wanted you could counter sink a hole in the rotor and one in the hub threaded to screw the two together if you wanted, but it isn't necessary. So there might be some minimal machine work. There is a site on the web were a fellow on the P15 D 24 board made up his own stuff using old blazer stuff. As Per the tex smith book. You might want to check this out. The Jeep rotors will not have to be redrilled as they are the same bolt pattern as the mopar. his site is a little old and doesn't say what year blazer he used but shouldn;t be hard to find. Like has always been said there's more than one way to skin a cat. http://www.dndrodshop.com/
napa 36959 brake hoses are off something like a mid 70 olds I think, they are super long, apparently these are very popular for brake swaps... These are the hoses suggested by Charlie Akers of rustyhope, i bought a front disc kit from him for my 55 Dodge 1/2 ton, it's a nice kit; good info and complete list of parts and #'s required. they fit the standard chev calipers and use aspen rotors
X2 on rustyhope.charlies a perfectionist and turns out first cl*** stuff. If it's Mopar he can supply the parts.
wow. this thread picked up. haven't checked it in awhile. I kinda came to a stand still on my brakes when i started chopping my top. The s-10 calipers are the same as g-body calipers. also from what i've been told some corvette calipers will bolt in where g/s calipers are used. I know the rotors I used are kind of small in diameter but i did that because of the wheel i want to run. if heat and brake fade become an issue I can always order some cross drill and slotted rotors. If i were running a 15 inch rim I could run fox body mustang rotors which have a little more diameter. I cut some new plate for my brackets and like i said got side tracked. Just gott clean the plates up a little and drill some holes and I should be able to bolt it all up. As far as the master cylinder i've read where guys just use the stock one and a proportioning valve. I'll cross that bridge when i get there.
Great to hear other people breaking the mould and making stuff work! I have a 39 Plymouth pick up which when I first started pulling it apart pulled up some front brake issues and being in the UK caused more than one headache I can tell you...... I know it may be a bit EURO for some but I have managed to retain my original stub axles, had some spacers machined up and am now ***embling a BMW M3 evo front disc setup. All parts available for almost ever and very simple, E36 hubs come with bearings complete and this whole lot has cost me far less than a disc conversion kit that all of our dealers wanted to sell me. Nothing wrong with the kit side other than my wallet but I also love the satisfaction that comes with working these kind of issues out for myself. Great thread and hope it all works out on the Dodge.
Domepiece, the rotor's you used don't have enough backspacing to allow the caliper to be deep enough behind the wheel. But you've found this out already I think. I've been working on upgrading the brakes on my '64 Chrysler, but also got sidetracked because I couldn't make my own stuff 'cause I didn't have a lathe at the time. Now, recently I upgraded the drumbrake system on my '62 NewYorker Wagon and used some parts I had already gathered for the '64. I believe I've posted a pic or two here and there for this setup. On the first try on my '64, I've been trying to go the stock drumhub and Cherokee rotor-route aswell but I believe I didn't like the offset of the rotor or something like that. Can't remember why I didn't proceed with it, but something didn't work as easy as I wanted. Also, because the car was getting some power under the hood, I def. wanted 11.75" rotors, so for the 2nd attempt, I went ahead and bought 1973 Chrysler rotors. These rotors are cheap and are about the beefiest you can find in these years. Cherokee Rotor mockup: 2nd attempt, I took a lot of measurements and finally drew up a design for the caliper-brackets in the computer and had these lasercut by a friend. Anyway, as said I got sidetracked aswell and only recently started converting my '62 NY-wagon to discs. In the meantime I had bought a lathe so certain things were a lot easier to create now. I used the '73 rotors as a base and started working around that. First thing that needed to be done was to increase the spindle-size so the larger '73 bearings could be used. I still had the spindle collars from the '64 I had made up earlier. Had I bought '69-'72 Chrysler rotors instead, then this wouldn't be needed, since these have smaller bearingsizes, but these rotors are $150 each, so that was not an option for me. Spindle collars and bearings mockup; For the '62 wagon I had redrill the adapter-plate since it's spindles are differecnt. I had decided to re-use the adapters since these were spares. With the lathe I turned down the inner center-thickness for rotor-clearance; I should have used some allen bolts as the stock spindle/steeringknuckle bolts rubbed the rotor slightly on the inside. Since it was a sunday and UNF allen bolts aren't really growing on trees here I decided to machine the rotor slightly instead. (I hope to remember this when it's time to replace these rotors again one day) The caliper is a '73 Chrysler unit with matching bracket. The bracket is not easy to come by these days but I used what I had available here. Best thing also, I could re-use the existing, stock ''62 style brakehose again. Here it all is mounted and almost ready; The only thing missing here is the grease-seal on the inside of the rotor. Someone said the convertor-seal of a 700R4 transmission should be a perfect fit, but I've found that's not the case. Not sure if this is of much help to you or anyone but I thought I'd share it anyway.
The rotor not being deep enough i think i can solve by putting the rotor on the back of the hub with the studs going through the rotor first then the hub. this would save having the hub machined down also. I think i'll just run a spacer though. There's many ways to skin a cat.
Thanks for the tip Scarebird, I'll get a pair of those to check out. domepiece, With placing the rotor behind the hub, this will put most if not all of the brakingforce applied mainly onto the studs themselves. I think they would work themselves loose in time because this. Normally I would think (although I'm no engineer) the rotor is held onto the hub partly by the friction between materials implied by the clamping torque(-rating) of the wheelnuts onto the studs. (bit hard to explain also since my first language isn't English)
This would make a slight difference, but not enough to matter, as quit a few 4WD trucks mount the rotors behind the hub. That being said, I still think this rotor is a poor choice.
man you guys think too much , on my 62 chrysler wagon took the bare spindle to the yard and matched them with a mid 70 cordoba almost perfect hell the hoses were long enough to go to the stock mount heck the ball joints been the same for years had to shorten the the toe adjusters a little set the toe crank down the bars and presto that was 50k miles ago new pads and turn the rotors well I,m a cheap ***** anyway my 2 cents
a 62 chrysler is nothing like a late forties early 50 dodge. as far as the the studs through the rotor first. you still have the same surface area friction between the hub and rotor it's just on the backside. My 98 3/4 ton suburban has the studs go through the rotor first also. makes it a big pain it the *** to replace the rotor but it does work.
Just bought Scarebirds disc brake kit and have no use for 4 new front wheel cylinders, a rebuilt master cylinder and front and rear shoes which are NOS. Let me know if someone can use them. Steve steze480@yahoo.com
You guys are legendary! We have Jeep 4x4's over here so they will be readily available (prolly fairly e**y) so no need for me to search. Any idea how thick they are? Then I would just need to find a caliper that fits it. Saves machining spindles and doing bearing changes. Louie
soooo,,, jeep rotors do work? im lost one says yes one says no... im still debating on going to disk, i have heard its a huge improvement, then heard properly done drums will stop just as well, anywho.. any updates?
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