Can you ID this brake swap?

[Beck]

I picked up a '36 GMC pu front axle. It has had a disc brake swap done years ago. I am trying to figure out what it is to determine if it is worth keeping. Can anyone ID this stuff? Everything is rusty and crusty yet. If better photos are necessary I can clean everything up. I just didn't want to spend a lot of time cleaning what could be junk.

The spindles may be stock'36 or they could be later GM stuff. The back side of the spindle has the 4 bolt square pattern like the 54 Chevy. I don't know how early this was used.
There were roller bearings which supprised me.
The hub appears to have been from a drum brake setup. It has 5 on 4 3/4 bolt pattern. There is a raised boss on the back side of the hub with a smaller 5 bolt pattern. This is where the rotor bolted to the back of it. This bolt pattern is smaller than 4 1/2 which is the smallest my wheel pattern goes. The bolts measure 2 3/8 apart. Could this be the little Mopar pattern?
The rotor is 11" in dia.
The calipers are 4 piston. They have Delco Moraine cast into them.
The bracket that mount the calipers are stamped steel. They look factory. There are nicely done. Deffinately not a home built piece.

Thanks

[wayne petty]

i don't know why...  but when i see those pieces i think 68 buick full size or olds full size cars.. more than a chevy... like a vette, camaro or impala/caprice..

just my thoughts...


wayne

and those calipers are rebuildable.., they get stainless steel sleeves...maybe a casting number off a caliper.. and a look at the brake pads...

[Beck]

i don't know why...  but when i see those pieces i think 68 buick full size or olds full size cars.. more than a chevy... like a vette, camaro or impala/caprice..

just my thoughts...


wayne

and those calipers are rebuildable.., they get stainless steel sleeves...maybe a casting number off a caliper.. and a look at the brake pads...

Thanks Wayne. I will do some searching at the parts store for those cars tomorrow. Brake pads should be a good start. I'll check if they have rotors too so I can match things up.

[wayne petty]

if you could post the casting numbers on the calipers that would help...

stainless steel brakes might be a good place to search them out...

as for those rotors...  you might end up sandblasting them and using them......i have a bunch of to do stuff tomorrow so it will be later friday night before i can get back to you......    

lay the rotor on its back side.. and measure from the back to the front  face...

measure the hub bore... the bolt circles... the thickness.. and if you can read it the min thinkness markings..

those brake pads are even hard to find.. there were several variations...
some with round ends and some with flat ends...
things may have changed since i last looked for one of those...

post what you can if you cannot find what you need at the parts store... i will do some research on the bendix pictures that i downloaded ...

[Charlie Chops 1940]

Look like the rotors and calipers from a '67 Chevy II, or 442/Gto right around the same time. The Chevy II is not the same as the other two. This was before GM settled in on the single piston caliper for everything but the Corvette.

Charlie

[GPster]

To me that stuff fits too good together to be a gathering of pieces from different vehicles. I can't see those pictures too well (all the same color of rust) but those spindles don't look like early Chevy or truck to me. My remembering of them is that the four backing plate bolts had each one on it's own separate tab on the spindle, not a single plate. Those discs and hubs go too well together to think that the holes in the disc were actually lug holes for another bolt pattern. With big Olds, Pontiac and Buick having a 5 on 5" lug pattern I'd be compelled to look mostly for a Chevy donor. The spindles point towards a straight axel but Chevy trucks would either have 6 lugs or the 5" BOP pattern. I don't think that GM was using that roller wheel bearings until '55 (?) in their Chevy's. Now sorting with these ideas points me towards that I'm not sure even came with disc brakes, but maybe. After the Corvair van died chevy was needing something to compete against Ford and Dodge. I think they had a van '65 to '67 (?) that had a straight front axel. This would be my guess or the way that I've gathered my mis-information. GPster

[tomslik]

looks like 67-68 chevelle to me.

[enjenjo]

I agree with Tom.

[Beck]

if you could post the casting numbers on the calipers that would help.

The casting # looks like 5455533

as for those rotors...  you might end up sandblasting them and using them

I bead blasted them today. Within 3 hr they were starting to rust again. I put a coat of epoxy primer on them tonight. They were probably 1" thick originally. They are .012 under now, but have pitting.

lay the rotor on its back side.. and measure from the back to the front  face...

I'm not quite sure of the measurement you want here. The casting is 6.25 total thickness from back to front

measure the hub bore... the bolt circles... the thickness.. and if you can read it the min thinkness markings..

The bore of the rotor is 3.05. That is where the rotor slides on the hub. There is NO casting in the rotor indicating minimum thickness.
The inner bearing is a LM67848
The outer bearing is a LM11949
The seal is not marked
The bolts that hold the caliper onto the bracket are 6.75 apart.
It looks like the pistons in the caliper are about 1 7/16 bore.
A guestimate of the bolt pattern that holds the rotor on is 5 on 3.75.

IF they are Olds full size the only part that is available is brake pads. I had to go to 2 places to locate that and only 1 set is available from their warehouse. No calipers, no caliper rebuild kits, and no rotors.

If they are Chevelle the caliper situation is the same. All the part store has is "excluding 4 piston caliper" parts available. They do have rotors in stock if the rotor is the same as the single piston design. It's too late to go check tonight. I will put it on the list of things to do tomorrow.

Charlie - I didn't have a chance to check the Chevy II yet. I guess those parts would be smaller sized than the Chevelle.

I think the guys at the parts store are beginning to hate me. Every time I come in it's for something weird. They just don't know what to do if you can't tell them make, model, engine size. Soon they will need to know color.

[enjenjo]

That casting number is coming up as a 67 to 68 Camaro/Corvette rear caliper. the rotor you have looks like a 67/68 Chevelle/Camaro front rotor, which can be safely turned to .930 thickness by my book.

[Jbird]

You might try these guys for rebuild parts,
>   http://www.resleeve.com/index.htm   < copy and paste that addy in your browser and it should take you to Karps Power brake. I got rebuild kits for some old Dunlop calipers from them, won't hurt to call.  Jbird

Never mind the copy and paste, just click on it.  

[Charlie Chops 1940]

Sounds like everyone has good advice. I think the Chevy II's used the same 2 piece rotor but the calipers were smaller. Casting numbers will sort it out. Sounds like Frank has that covered. At one time I had 3 or 4 sets of junk yard early GM disc setups along with spindles and caliper brackets...and there wasn't a lot of matching parts. in the pile except spindles, bearings and some of the rotors matched.

The 2 piece rotors were specifically designed for the various 4 piston calipers. The 1 piece replacement rotors would not work due to caliper interference. Until recent years replacement hardware for some of that 1 or 2 year stuff was really hard to find.

Charlie

[tomslik]

Sounds like everyone has good advice. I think the Chevy II's used the same 2 piece rotor but the calipers were smaller. Casting numbers will sort it out. Sounds like Frank has that covered. At one time I had 3 or 4 sets of junk yard early GM disc setups along with spindles and caliper brackets...and there wasn't a lot of matching parts. in the pile except spindles, bearings and some of the rotors matched.

The 2 piece rotors were specifically designed for the various 4 piston calipers. The 1 piece replacement rotors would not work due to caliper interference. Until recent years replacement hardware for some of that 1 or 2 year stuff was really hard to find.

Charlie

you can use the 2 piece chevelle rotors with single piston calipers but not the other way around.
btw, they used the 2 piece up to 70 but 69 up calipers were single piston.
IF it were me with this conversion, i see how much changing it'd take to use single piston calipers.
maybe even 78 up metrics would be even a better choice...

[Beck]

That casting number is coming up as a 67 to 68 Camaro/Corvette rear caliper. the rotor you have looks like a 67/68 Chevelle/Camaro front rotor, which can be safely turned to .930 thickness by my book.

The caliper is NOT 68 Corvette rear.  I looked at one of those. The mounting holes are much closer together and the piston dia is much smaller.
The 68 Corvette front is nearly right. It has the right mounting width, the pistons are the right diamater, but it has square brake pads and mine are round. The brake line goes in a little different place. This caliper would probably work if I need to replace them. If mine are ok inside the pads for this won't work on mine.
I have not found availablity for any of the other 4 piston setups.

The local parts store did have the one piece rotor. It lookled like it would fit but then there is the problem with the 4 piston caliper not fitting. I wonder if the mounting bracket for the single piston would bolt on my spindle? I realize the single piston caliper will not work on the 4 piston bracket. It has to slide for alignment.

Hopefully Monday I will have some spare time at work. I am going to blow the caliper apart to see how bad it is inside. The pistons seem pertty tight pressing by hand.

Thanks everyone!

[wayne petty]

D3 pads have round ends... and come on 67 camaros with disks on the front only....

D8 pads have square ends and fit 67  camaros with 4 wheel disc brakes...


the vette calipers use D8 pads....

im still sorting through the rotors...in the pdf file...