D60 Front Brake Upgrade

[mcmlxix]

I'm going to document my attempt at "upgrading" the front brakes on my GM Dana 60 front axle. It all started with the rear axle of the 72 Blazer needing help. It needs a new carrier as the stock one it trashed... rather than just rebuild I decided to GO BIG.... So I found a late model 14BFF from a 2004 GMC 2500HD Duramax... It’s actually an AAM 14 bolt with an 11.5" ring gear and factory disc brakes with drum in hat e-brake. It uses a dual piston caliper which brings me to my upgrade....

I picked up a Dana 60 to match the 14BFF rear. The BOM on the D60 reads a SRW built in 1982 with 4.10 gears and open diff. The plan is to use the front dual piston calipers that would have come on the 2004 GMC and capitalize on the GM engineering. The factory rotor diameter was 12.87" w/ 1.54 thicknesses. The 04 GMC rotor diameter is 12.79" w/ 1.5" thickness.... And I chose to go with a 2009 Dodge 3500 rotor that’s diameter measures 14.18" w/ 1.54" thickness. (Go Big or Go Home, right?) I hope the 4 hundredths doesn’t kill the fitment of the GMC caliper over the Dodge rotor....

I had the factory D60 hubs outer edge machined down about a 1\16" so it fits inside the rotor. It now slips over the hub, rather then being held on the back with the pressed in wheel studs. I will need to figure out new studs. I picked up a used caliper off eBay and it should be here 5/11/11. I will need to make a bracket to mount the caliper. I hope to accomplish this without needing bends or offsets. I won't know till I get the caliper. If all this fails the only permanent mod was machining the hub which will not cause any issues if I need to return to the stock configuration...

I plan to upgrade to Hydroboost and use the Hydro/MC combo from the 2004 GMC. This again capitalizes on the GM engineering, matching the calipers to the master cylinder (MC.)

I'll post pics shortly.... edit: added pics

So here is the rotor on the hub. No wheels studs, just some bolts holding it in place.



Here is a side shot. Shows the space left for the caliper bracket...