Wish me Luck... Project 4D(isc) initiated!

[Jerrod4567]

Well I've done a ton of research and got even more priceless feedback from all of you guys here. Tomorrow morning I will begin project 4D. As my truck now sits its a 4 wheel drum single resevoir master cylinder manual brake setup.

Sitting in my driveway are more or less the bulk of the parts I need to do a 4 wheel disc/hydroboost conversion that I have collected over the past few months. I will be using the GM front disc setup and the explorer rear disc setup along with an astrovan HB unit.

I will make sure to take plenty of pictures documenting the entire process. I feel I have gained enough input to make this a semi hassle free project and I thank you all for that! Stay tuned for pics !!!

P.S. Once again posted both here and on Classicbroncos so cut me some slack on the double reading

[crawlin68]

You are just as sick as the rest of us! You just got it put back together a week ago and now you're tearing back apart this week.

Seriously though, good luck with the install and let us know if you need anything.

[Broncrick]

Good luck, if your like me and others it will be down for months while you do other mods on it
Rick-

[Jerrod4567]

I got started this morning. First thing I did was take everything out and glass bead blast it. Cleaned up real nice and arranged it all on the table.









I stuck the rear rotors in the lathe and cut the centers out a little bit where the flange sticks through. It was just a few thousandths smaller than the hub on the axle flange but enough to not let it come through without a bit of trimming.

I will be also taking a little bit out from behind the rear rotor where the axle flange makes contact with it due to the fact that the rotors were designed for 5 on 4.5” axles flanges and therefore are a bit too small inside for the larger 5 on 5.5” EB axles without some trimming. That and redrilling the holes for the bolt pattern will be done later next week as I decided to start with the fronts.

I started out by hanging the backing plates and painting them black.



Next I set up the easy up (it was hot today!) and started teardown.





Upon inspection of the old old inner and outer bearings I decided they were starting to show some signs of wear as I expected they would after 41 years. Also I noticed that the U-joint between the inner and outer axle was bad as well so I went ahead and disassembled the driver side knuckle and pulled the axle assembly.









I will be installing new bearings/seal and u-joints to each side as well. By the time I got to this point I had a huge mess in the driveway so decided to call it a day and pick everything up.

My hydroboost unit was supposedly sent out to me on Monday morning from Oregon but I have yet to see it so I’m starting to speculate if it was actually shipped out when it said it was. Oh well though, lots of other things to do first! Stay tuned for more pics in the coming days.

[seahawkfan]

This is starting to look like a VERY GOOD tech thread. Keep up the good work. I'll copy you later.

Jeff

[Spaceburger]

Yea really, I am about to do my front conversion to disc using 79 Bronco Knucks, rotors and calipers. I just had new ball joints installed on my knucks this morning. More pics please.

[Jerrod4567]

I’m still waiting on my seals and bearings to come in so I decided to go ahead and redrill my rear rotors to 5 on 5.5” in the meantime. As suggested by some members of the message board I took a stock axle and knocked the studs out, and placed the rear rotor on it. I used the axle as a template and drilled the correct bolt pattern on the drill press. It came out good and both rotors fit easily onto a 5 on 5.5” bolt pattern axle now.









After that I got to looking at my Calipers for the front and realized that a couple years ago when I pulled all the parts to do this swap from the junkyard, I got Calipers that did not match the brake hoses I had. Turns out the calipers were off of a 2 wheel drive pickup rather than a 4x4 and used a smaller banjo bolt as well as a different hose.

Since the hoses I had were the correct ones and in great shape, I decided just to buy the correct calipers from the parts store and turn mine in as cores. It only cost me 12.99 each for them so it was no big deal. As you can see in the picture the correct calipers have a notch for the “T” end of the brake hose to sit down in. The other calipers did not have this and accepted a more circular end hose.

After determining I had the correct setup I went ahead and painted them and set them on the backing plates.







More to come soon…

Oh also, I meant to post this in the tech section originally but accidentally put it in general discussion. Could a moderater please relocate it for me? Thanks a lot.

[Jerrod4567]

Got the rear backing plates and calipers painted up today. Also my seals and bearings and U-joints all came in so tomorrow I can start actually making some progress.

[Daddy4zack]

looks good!! lets see some install pics!!


Aaron

[Jerrod4567]

So today I woke up and got started on the driver side. First thing was to remove the old outer axle seal and install the new one.



I pressed the old U-joint out of the driver side axle assembly (after 41 years it was not easy) and installed the new one.





After that it was back in with the axle after applying a bit of white grease to the seal surfaces.



Next thing to do was install the new Spindle seal and the install the spindle onto the knuckle





After that I slid the disc brake backing plate over the spindle and installed my new grade 8 bolts.





Next it was time to pack the wheel bearings with grease, install them into the rotor/hub assembly and then install the inner seal.



After that, it was time to install the rotor/hub onto the spindle



Seeing that today is the 4th of July it was time to pause and start up the BBQ, we had a lot of family over so here is the result



After that it was time to reassemble my warn locking hub assembly




Painted up the hub and went down and bought some new semi metallic brakes and installed them along with the calipers.









I haven’t hooked up the brake line yet but for the most part the driver side front is now complete.

More to come soon….

[seahawkfan]

Damn, you have the how to 1-2 down. How about some pics on the hose attachment too?

Next will you do the power brake write up?

Thanks for the help

Jeff

[PhantomEB]

MMMM clean parts... I guess I should almost keep that blast cabinet and try to make it more efficient....

[Delta 4 Wheel]

Nice work. I am going to stick this as a good resource for disc swap tech...

I'd liek to try the exploder rear disc's on m,y full float 9 inch. I wonder if I could get it all to line up.

[Jerrod4567]

Nice work. I am going to stick this as a good resource for disc swap tech...

I'd liek to try the exploder rear disc's on m,y full float 9 inch. I wonder if I could get it all to line up.

Thanks, once I get the passenger side done I'll be posting the pics of the explorer install.

[highlander]

When you get to the rear explorer install could get a picture from the front or back showing how far inboard the caliper sits, and maybe a measurement from the flange at the end of the axle.