Chopped, slammed, bagged, tubbed, lowered floors, 418 w/blower, 6r80, 1/2 cab, Bronco Hot Rod

[ntsqd]

The end of the housing tube that's important is the other end. Those get buried in the stampings for good reason. Ideally you'd start with the bare stamping, some tubes, piloted housing ends; and weld it all together in a fixture. But the non-piloted housing ends are a reasonable compromise. When you manage to break those welds you probably will have bigger concerns. Or you've been spending money with Keith Black and Mooneyham.....

 

[nvrstuk]

Question on bearing and brakes. Thought I'd ask cause I know there are differences btw the Torino end and the late big brg end (I think). Brake drums don't align, gap betwen the spacer plate when bolting it together etc.

Wouldn't mind preventing that.

Here's pics of 2 ends, one butt weld with the slide in equiv above it and $100+ difference in price. ????

The other pic is the Moser ones (thanks Steve).

Which one works with standard EB "big bearing" brakes?
Thanks

pics below

 

[ntsqd]

Scope creep: Just go with Exploder RDB's. They fit the "Torino" housing ends and appropriate axle shafts. At the time that I bought the kit Moser had the best price on them. Unless they're super trick already you're likely going to need to upgrade the axle shafts anyway.

 

[Yeller]

That's what I was thinking TS and Steve.

Like butt welding beams is strong enough but not a housing end???

Or the tube it’s self on an early 9” housing the banjo bends first.

TS is right on brakes…. Simple and easily upgraded if you find your track time is cooking them.

As for using EB drums moser offers the early style but your limiting your self on brake options.

 

[nvrstuk]

Thanks, I'll make a few calls about Exploder brakes and Moser butt weld housing ends. They have a small drum brake for the ebrake also. I was going to go drums just for cost and ease of ebrake but the Exploder ends solve that. I used Exploder discs before and the spacers and shims were a royal pita... Since I'm going new housing ends maybe there's a newer/better setup for them now.

Yup, I need to narrow the housing so I can take tires off and on! lol Probably a couple inches on each end. Dang it's tight. I'm thinking I can mount studs in the top of the bags, make an easily accessible door to the top so I can loosen the nut so the suspension can droop 10" or more and with axle straps be able to lower the axles enough to snake the tire out. I will run lines down the lower link so the suspension can hang. Ujoing angles should let me droop 10+". Going to be interesting. lol

New axles are a must since I need them shorter and I since I need a Nodular for the same price I went 35 spline. Been looking for most of a year for a used one.

 

[ssray]

Yup, I need to narrow the housing so I can take tires off and on! lol Probably a couple inches on each end. Dang it's tight. I'm thinking I can mount studs in the top of the bags, make an easily accessible door to the top so I can loosen the nut so the suspension can droop 10" or more and with axle straps be able to lower the axles enough to snake the tire out. I will run lines down the lower link so the suspension can hang. Ujoing angles should let me droop 10+". Going to be interesting. lol

You might have to do like the PU guys do with the tilt up beds…maybe some tilt up (gull wing) quarter panels with actuators. Make it unique!

 

[Yeller]

Since you’re ordering new axles and housing ends you can order axles with the correct offset and the exploder brakes will bolt on. With no changes.

 

[ntsqd]

As I recall Moser even offers the Exploder kits in a range of different wheel bolt patterns so you should be able to order the kit to be a direct bolt-on.

 

[Yeller]

As I recall Moser even offers the Exploder kits in a range of different wheel bolt patterns so you should be able to order the kit to be a direct bolt-on.

yes they do, when I build custom axles I use them, pay me to retrofit something or pay me to bolt on parts, labor vs parts, parts usually win by a lot. Also doesn't lock you into an odd expensive rotor, stock replacements are easy to redrill. I've had them opt to not do ebrakes but still bolt on easy. Also opens up JY finds too for the brackets, loaded backing plates, rotors and calipers are readily available.

 

[nvrstuk]

Since you’re ordering new axles and housing ends you can order axles with the correct offset and the exploder brakes will bolt on. With no changes.

That's what I was hoping- PERFECT!!

When the snow melta and temps get conducive to JY hunting I can travel a hundred + miles to find some of those parts (dang I wish we had a real JY locally)
Thanks Steve!

 

[nvrstuk]

You might have to do like the PU guys do with the tilt up beds…maybe some tilt up (gull wing) quarter panels with actuators. Make it unique!

Unique-yeah right, like I need to do something like that to make this build unique!! lol

W/O a separate box (like p/u's have) making hinged qtr panels or raising the bed might get a little bit creative??? That would be waaaay cool tho!

 

[ntsqd]

Just make the 1/4's be held in place with a bunch of Dzus buttons.

Can't recall if I've mentioned it here or not, but early 2000's Expedition RDB's are just scaled up versions of Exploder RDB's. Rotors have a larger OD, the calipers have a slightly larger piston, and the drum parking brake is slightly larger as well. I don't think that I'd go this way for a truck like Shorty - especially with the Exploder RDB's being so easy, but for a Full Size or an EB on 40's they might be a better rear brake.
Pics, etc. of where I am with this: https://socalbroncos.com/forum/thre...rear-d60-and-large-disc-brake-conversions.29/

 

[Yeller]

I looked at doing the expedition brakes on the J Truck, but the calipers wouldn’t clear the leaf springs. That and they don’t clear 15” wheels. Another reason I keep toying with the idea spring under leafs.

 

[ntsqd]

Deaver has made custom "GM 63's" for spring under applications in the past. The truck that I saw with them, owned by one of the principles behind Total Chaos, worked extremely well. If you could somehow use the OEM springs I think that they're just about the best OEM leaf spring that I've ever seen. Their two distinctive features, spring pad shims and tip sliders, don't seem to be duplicated in the aftermarket springs. Tip sliders aren't uncommon, but the shims are and I think that is a travesty. I had to increase the damping in Patch's rear shocks because of those shims. Tells me how much friction is removed by them, and that is a good thing.

 

[ssray]

Good brake topic....There's another thread on electric park brakes and I was pondering that. Would rotor thickness likely vary between the passenger vehicles and Explorer/Expedition. Mom's Edge has those brakes and they seem to work well. The standard brakes are actually a bit harsh if you lay into them to hard. Hypothetically the larger rotor would give better braking power if you could adapt. If it's not enough caliper I can see where it might be hard on pads. I checked at a junkyard and they run around 45$ a piece. The down side is they take a lot of room laterally...could be tight fitting them in depending on suspension. Might be nice for Shorty or possibly a standard Bronco if they could be fit in there. I haven't looked yet, but is there a good site that has specs on rotor width etc?

 

[Yeller]

In all of this bearing cup and axle discussion I forgot to mention the correct 1/2” and 3/8” T bolts are available on Amazon fairly reasonably for a specialty hardware item reasonable any way lol. $25 +\- for the set of 8.

 

[nvrstuk]

Thanks for all the "bits & pcs" of info all.

Sure makes for less stumblin' when putting this together!

Calling Moser this am to see what they can do...

 

[ntsqd]

I didn't recall that the Expedition brakes don't fit inside of 15" wheels, but I should have as I think we discussed that before.

I'm personally not at all sold on electric parking brakes. For me they don't solve a problem that I have, and I'd rather be able to do things like partly set the p-brake when I'm doing things like pulling new winch line onto the drum.

The math is pretty simple for figuring out the brake torque, can even then calculate an equivalent "Horse-Power". Coming up with all of the numbers to plug into the equation isn't always so simple. Line pressure is fairly easy, as is caliper piston area. Finding the pad's centroid and it's radial distance from the axis of rotation takes some educated guessing, a fair bit of math, or some CAD software. The real bugger is the coefficient of friction of the brake pad's compound. Most vary with temperature, some quite widely. If you don't know your brake's normal operating temperature (who doesn't, right? snicker) then you're left with either guessing (right about "there"!) or using an average.

I had more, but I figured that I'd best step down off that soap-box......

 

[nvrstuk]

Sounds like an engineer speaking !!

17" Wheels so no clearance issues.

I figure with an adj proportioning valve (which I always use on rear axles) and sizing with vehicle weights, tire diameters etc I should be able to dial in brake bias on the rear fairly well but I have done the math with pedal ratios, piston dia's at both ends and all the calc's and it's worked well.

 

[ntsqd]

Sounds like an enginerd speaking !!

Fixed it for you.