In October Stude Trucks and I set out to fit some 15” Baer brakes into his 17” one ton wheels. now you might be asking yourself "why" and the answer is because Stude Trucks lives on a hilltop and with A blown Hemi he wants this thing to stop as well as it goes, So now you dont have to ask. You can get custom made hats from Baer but when the flange and bolt circumference are the same you are on your own. The first thing we did was figure out the spacing for the rotors. We then had some steel stock cut on the water jet. At Bulldog Machine in Vallejo. Ca. Next Johnny From T.E.M Machine in Napa Ca. came over and took some measurements. He then took the blanks and worked his magic on the lath and Bridgeport mill. The newly machined parts came back for a final fit. Then it was back to the machine shop for a day of final welding, Rich at T.E.M. was kind enough to let me use his tig, I would weld an inch and Johnny would true it on the lath. Once the rotors were on. We set out to mount the caliper. nothing fancy just strong. We started by placing the calaper on the rotor then shimmed the pads so they were tight. With the caliper was held in its final position, we fabricated a simple bracket out of ¼ plate. <p>
Thanks for the post Matt. Good pics. Hadn't seen them before. Don't worry guys, the calipers and logos are getting painted out. Not into seeing that. Actually, and sadly, I want the brakes to go away as much as possible. I really am trying to keep this truck as much true late 50's/early 60's as possible. And going for kind of a hopped up heavy duty farm truck visually stock sleeper thing. The biggest sticking point was I am adamant on keeping the original Studebaker 17"split ring wheels. To me, those are a lot of the original character of the truck and just had to keep those no matter what along with factory track width, etc. I definitely plan to seriously use this truck too and do actually live on a pretty decent hill and plan to drive it on the highway plenty too. So, the one period visual and performance compromise I decided I needed to make was for safety on all the brakes. Having other heavy duty Studebaker trucks, I know full well how good and bad the stock drums can be or not be. And hauling around a bunch of stuff going down a steep hill headed towards red lights, I wanted there to be no question this shit was going to stop as needed and expected. So, reluctantly I decided I had to do the disc brakes on the front. And to my dismay, turns out Baer was the only company I could find that was even willing to sell me parts for a 1-ton truck. Others claimed their stuff was not designed and was not strong enough for a 1-ton truck application. And Baer would only sell me the biggest stuff they had. I tried to research and find a suitable OEM salvaged disc brakes from various trucks, etc. that might be able to be adapted. But, sticking to my desire to retain the 5-lug budd wheels made those options few and far between. I did find some front disc axels off of Dodge M500 RV chassis and actually got some of those, but in the end decided the best route would be go with the Baer stuff as I found out the old Dodge stuff was going to be difficult to find parts from in the future when needed along with other issues and just decided it was probably going to be best to go with newer stuff for this. Anybody want a couple of old M500 front axels with disc brakes cheap? We still tried to keep the metal work truck-like and less slick and hot rod, more purposeful, and Matt did a sweet job doing just that and figuring it all out and putting it together and Johnny did a killer job on the machine work. I haven't met Johnny yet, but he sure knows how to machine stuff. They also made some very cool spacers for the rear wheels as well. We're still working on the final fit and details on those and we can post more on that later if anyone is interested. But, reality is Matt also did a lot more for me than these cool brakes as well. He also figure out the brake and clutch stuff and fabbed that up. Did finally placement of the motor/trans. and strengthen up the frame some and added a trans. mount. an to top it off he fabbed up a super cool rear box extension for the truck that is the same profile and detailing of the factory bed with accessible doors to store stuff in and lock it up for security. I don't have any good shots to show at the moment, but will take some and add to this post or make another later. He is also a super nice, smart and cool guy to boot. And looks like he and Kirk are having a blast on the Legion Special. Thanks Matt, Johnny and Rich as well for helping me make some good progress on the truck. It is now back in my hands to crank on the lesser skilled stuff for a bit and sadly not moving too fast. But, I'll post some more on it as I go. Here are some previous threads for reference if interested: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=294748 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=321310 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=311039
Bitchin to see the process. I just saw the end product. Dude, you have to show off the toolbox you did for the same truck. It's SICK!!!!
Here are some more pics that I forgot I had that show the box. Not the greatest shots. Matt. feel free to add more a better shots if you want. You seem to be better at taking cool shots than me. Keep in mind, the goal was purposeful looking, sort of factory Studebaker truck OEM and not too clean and overly finished. Oh, and I had forgot to mention, Matt also basically rebuilt the whole bed as most of the sheet metal was all bent up. He also repaired and straightened up all 4 fenders too. You can see one of the rear wheel spacers in the box.
I'll say it again. F'n Cool! You need to tell us more about how you put that box together. That's better than the brakes.
Make sure you can bleed them, I design commercial truck and military suspensions for a living, they won't let us mount a brake at 12 o clock because of bleeding difficulties. Nice setup for sure. And yeah there are only a few places that make big brakes, my company being one of them....
sorry guys I dont know what happened to the pics of the tool box build. when I find them I'll post them.
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