[57taskforce]

Promised pics.
All in all the machine work on the flanges and hubs turned out great. I’m going to be posting a complete write up on the swap to the 4x4 section soon. Everything is mocked up right now, the flanges still need welded to the tubes amongst several other things. However, this setup is going to work well. The parking brake works by hand. I’m going to probably replace the calipers and rotors once everything goes together for good even though they don’t look terrible. In a nut shell the backs of the hubs have to be turned down about .02 in order to center the rotor on the hub. The flanges, are made from 3/4” plate and were cut on a water jet first, then the bolt holes and the centering boss for the backing plate were CNC machined in, as well as a weld bevel in the back side for welding to the axle tube. I will get some better pictures of the bare flanges off the truck before I weld it in.

This setup isn't the most cost effective way to get disks on a 14 bolt but, it’s the only way I’ve seen to have disks and a good reliable parking brake setup with off the shelf replacement parts designed for a 3/4-1ton truck. I suppose Driveline brakes are an option but not the route I wanted to go and Eldorado calipers just weren’t going to do it for me. This setup really hasn’t costed me anything because I had two of these axles that I got for free to rob parts from, I sold one of the axles after I gutted the brake parts to pay for the machine work. Without a donor axle this swap will be pretty pricey if sourcing all new parts, not just the normal pads, rotors, and calipers.

I’ll fill in the details more in the write up. In these pictures you can see the machine work to the back of the hubs, the flanges on the axle with the caliper mount centering boss, and the complete mock up. In the picture of the hub the knife is resting on the top of the boss created to center the rotor on the hub. The highest boss in that picture is the original boss used to center the 13”drum. The picture of the hub and drum together shows how the rotor now centers to the hub.

You’ll also note that my Dana 60 is stripped down. I tore it all down to blast and paint the brake parts/wheel parts as well as to clean the inside of the axle tubes, do the king pins and the axle u joints. The Bearings in carrier looked good so I likely won’t touch them. I still need to pull the pinion so I can clean the housing and get it ready for paint as well.