Going to cast wide five disc brake front hubs for early spindles

I went to Mechanical Specialties and picked up the wide five disc brake adapter blanks Friday. Got some pics of how the set up is going to work. This is just the first disc adapter to the stock front two piece hub, I still plan to cast full hubs that will accept the rotors directly at a later date.

One question I have is would you prefer to use the stock style stud that has a clipped head and a smooth body that requires the stud to be swedged in or the more modern serrated stud that can be pressed in? I am leaning toward the modern style if I can find one with the right diameter shank.

This is the rotor adapter blank as it came out of the water jet.



This is a two piece wide five hub and drum.



This is a two piece wide five hub with the drum and weight removed. I found that the weight causes an imbalance after the drum is removed.



Here is the rotor and how it will set on the adapter and hub after it is machined and drilled. It will also have a collar pressed in that centers the rotor on the adapter and the adapter will fit the stepped edge of the hub causing everything to be hub centric.



This is a hub that was under water on one side for some time so it was rusted beyond use and I cut it in half to get a better view of the cross section. This will help in the design of the cast hub.



This is how the adapter will seat in and be hub centric.

 

Use modern studs, please.

 

2nd the modern studs.

 

Call me nervous norvise...I think that braking forces will cause deflection in alum webs and maybe even in hub too..I would just go right to the hub development but not fond of tapped blind holes to mount rotor to hub or just thread in webs but I suppose a bolt and nut would work there [in webs]....Stud should be full thread bolt with threaded hub, don't trust serrated press in to alum, especially cast.. Just my thoughts.

 

I found a serrated press in stud that will work for the outer wheel studs. Still need to do something to hold the rotor on. 1)I can thread the holes and thread bolts in from the back side making them into studs that I can bolt the rotor on with. 2)I could use press in studs from the back. 3)I could use bolts and nuts in a smooth hole. 4) I could tap the plate and bolt the rotor on.

Out of the 4 ways I would lean towards #2 due to ease of manufacturing, I think I might have found studs for that part as well. The adapter is made from 6061 T6 Aircraft grade aluminum 3/8" thick so I doubt there will be a problem with deflection.

 

Also, if you have force that is being applied that might cause deflection, you have a different problem than the resulting deflection.

 

I went to the Polaris dealer today and found the 3/8" press in serrated wheel studs that I want to use for holding the rotor to the adapter plate. I need to use 3/8" thread size here so that the nut and socket will clear the inside of the rotor hat.

 

Well so much for being able to use the press in serrated stud, it has a non threaded shoulder that prevents the lug nut from tightening enough to hold the wheel on properly. It looks like I am relegated to using the original style clip head smooth body studs. I will be adding material in certain areas to strengthen it up a bit and ease machining process. Went to my machine shop guy today and worked out all the details so it can be manufactured easily. See post #61 above for pictures.

The stud hole in the original hub is 0.56 and the only stud out of about 345 of them is too long on the shoulder. You will need to cut the swage off the original studs no matter what and the replacement ones will need to be swaged in place. I was thinking of including the tool to swage them in the kit. The kit will consist of the adapter with the rotor studs pressed in, lug studs, rotor bushings and nuts, rotor, caliper and bracket, brake pads, all hardware to mount it and a swage tool.

 

I am back on this project. I got studs from Mac's today and when I test fit them I found that the hub's I am going to run and the ones that I did my prototype work on are different. The area where the studs go are different thicknesses. One is a little over 1/8" thick while the other is 1/4" thick. The studs that I got will work with the thin hub's but the shoulder is not long enough for the thicker hub. The thicker hub seems to be the same thickness as a rear hub.

My thought is that the drums should be the same so the added material is on the outside face. I will check that next. If that is the the case then all that is needed is a longer shoulder on the stud. Has anyone else run into this problem?

 

Got new studs from Mac's and it looks like they will work with the thicker hubs. I will get it to the machine shop this week so the adapters can get drilled and machined.

 

55Willys are you still making 5x5.5 adapters?

 

Well, life once again got in the way of hot rod stuff. Job change, divorce, etc. I am back to work on the wide five disc brakes kit. Rotor mounting has been finalized. I have chosen a caliper. I welded together a caliper bracket. I have a place that can possibly cast the caliper brackets. I am using the GM metric style caliper because of ease of fit, but I am using the larger AFCO version of it. It has a 2-3/4" piston as compared to the stock 2-1/2" piston. This translates into approximately 1000 pounds of added clamping force on the brake pads.

I am also in need of some dimensions for a 46-48 hub with the drum attached to the rear of the hub. The dimensions that I need are outer bearing seat to end of hub. End of hub to wheel mounting surface. Wheel mounting surface to drum mounting surface thickness.