Rear Brake Drum Dilemma

[jtrichard]

Thats good can you put up pics of the jeep drums before and after the mods and then the install

[roger55]

Originally Posted by jtrichard

Thats good can you put up pics of the jeep drums before and after the mods and then the install

Sure. I'll do that for you.

[roger55]

Here's photos of the Wagoneer drum before machine work.







Distance from axle flange surface to edge of friction surface (3 3/16"):



Same measurement on original drum (3 1/8"):



So, there is only a 1/16" difference in this measurement between the Jeep drum and the original. For sure, I'm not going to have a clearance problem with the backing plate.

The reason I earlier said at least 3 1/16" was a must was because on the original drum, I could see that the shoes came to about 1/16" of an inch from the edge of the drum.

Again, this same measurement on the 2067DGS was 2 7/16"

I'm going to try and get these new Jeep drums down to the machine shop on Monday.

[roger55]

Originally Posted by gimmy 64

ihave a 64 gmc I went through this same thing. found out the drums for 72 chevy blazer 4 wheel drive works. these have been on my truck for about 2 years. $50 bucks at autozone. I did not have to drill the lug holes either?

I was thinking that you could possibly have a dangerous issue here.

Here's a photo of why the lug holes have to be made larger:



As you can see, the shoulders of the lugs protrude through the axle flange and the holes in the drum must go over them.

If you put your 2067DGS drums on and they don't go perfectly flat against the axle flange, then your lugs would be handling all the torsional and shear stress. The lugs are not designed to handle that stress. They are designed so that the lug nuts will clamp the wheel and drum to the axle flange so that the whole unit is in a single shear condition. If not, your lugs could all shear off at the same time resulting in wheel loss and the possible loss of control of your truck.

If you have this condition, it's not a matter of it will fail but when. I suggest you check it to make sure.

[61K10]

do you know if you have the correct lug studs? org?

[roger55]

Originally Posted by 61K10

do you know if you have the correct lug studs? org?

Yes, they are the correct ones. The original drums have the larger holes too.

[MusicMan70]

Roger55,
Thanks for posting the photos and dimensions/part numbers on this drum and all the specifics.
I'm sure you have helped a lot of folks with this modern upgrade.

[roger55]

Originally Posted by MusicMan70

Roger55,
Thanks for posting the photos and dimensions/part numbers on this drum and all the specifics.
I'm sure you have helped a lot of folks with this modern upgrade.

You bet. I'll follow up with more pics when I get them back from the machine shop. I'm planning on dropping them off on Monday if he's there. He's semi-retired so he isn't there all the time.

Hopefully this thread will help people in the future. Google will find it so I would think it will get hits once in a while.

[jtrichard]

any luck yet?

[roger55]

Originally Posted by jtrichard

any luck yet?

I dropped them off at the machine shop on Monday. He said he didn't think it was going to be any problem at all. He's going to mill out the center hole and drill the lug holes larger.
He said he had a few other jobs to get done first but he would have them done next week.

I'll post with pics when I get them back.

[Ozzy2013]

You could always go disc on the rear.

[roger55]

Originally Posted by Ozzy2013

You could always go disc on the rear.

As far as I know, there isn't a disc brake kit for a Dana 44 rear.

[Ozzy2013]

Currie enterprises.Makes them.

[roger55]

Originally Posted by Ozzy2013

Currie enterprises.Makes them.

Got a link?
I didn't see them on their website.
I searched Wilwood too and it appears they don't make them.

I wouldn't consider them now since I've found a solution for the drums. But, if a disc kit is out there, I'd like to know about it.

[Ozzy2013]

Looks like they have them listed by measurements as well as by application .It looks like they sell them for the jeep dana 44 someone mentioned as a donor for the drums .If i were you i would give Currie enterprises a call if you are interested.Im sure they have a kit that could be adapted if i needed to do it i would machine the brackets myself .Glad you got it worked out.

[jtrichard]

hey Roger anything new on drums?

[newbe351]

Another recent post. Third post down has some brake drum part numbers.


http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=619951

[kieth]

You could have the center of the axle machined down in diameter to match the brake drums, that was what we did to my 66 gmc when converting it to 5 lug.

Kieth

http://kieth.smugmug.com/Trucks/66-GMC/i-8bbRfcq/A


with the brake drum installed:

http://kieth.smugmug.com/Trucks/66-GMC/i-4G39bfw/A


One other thing you will have to do is to drill a oblong hole out in the backing plate to allow one to adjust the brake shoes before bleeding the brakes the final time. (my brakes were adjustable from the outside of the brake drum wheras the later model drums were adjustable from the bottom backside of the backing plate......Keith

[roger55]

Originally Posted by jtrichard

hey Roger anything new on drums?

I just heard from the machine shop. The guy had some personal issues come up and had not been at work. He said he should be able to have them done in a few more days.

I'm in no rush and told him so. I just got the cab back on the frame and still have a bunch of work to do before the truck is ready to drive.

[roger55]

I finally got my Jeep brake drums back from the Machine shop. He charged me $80 to do both drums. He machined out the centers to 3.56" and drilled the lug holes to 9/16".

They fit perfect!!!







So, I paid $29 per drum at O'Reilly's (2345DGS) and $40 per drum for the machine work for a total of $69 a piece. This is considerably cheaper than the Centric drums would have been if I had been able to get them. The cheapest price on those would have been $104 a piece at Rock Auto.

[MusicMan70]

Great Photos and follow-thru with posting the results. Thanks for doing this Roger55.

[roger55]

You bet Musicman. I hope what I did here will help others in the future.

Btw, I should mention a mod I did to the backing plates. The GMC Dana 44 backing plates take bolt-on E-brake cables and the brake cables for my '57 Chevy pickup are the kind that clip into a round hole.
I had an old pair of backing plates in my scrap pile that had the humps with the round holes and I cut them off and welded them on to the GMC ones. If you look at that last photo, you can see that.

It was either have a custom set of brake cables made or do the mod so I chose the latter route.

[roger55]

Btw, here's how I did that mod.

First, this shows the old GMC cable and the new Chevy brake cable:



This shows the cuts and the piece that needs to be welded in the GMC plate:







Welded in:





Smoothed a little and then blasted:





They are now ready for SPI black epoxy primer.

[slorio]

Roger55:
Looks good. For those who follow with this thread, I had the same issue with the emergency brake cables. Inlinetube.com can make the cable up to work like the originals. Otherwise, I used the Chevy cable that you show. I made one modification to the GMC bracket by cutting a slit in the backside of the bracket so the cable could pass through. Then the Chevy cable "plugs" into the GMC bracket.

Hope this is helpful for those in the future.
Regards,
Steve
New Orleans

[jtrichard]

just wanted to bring this back up top