Rear brake/breather block

[Jakedog]

I installed a new currie rear axle a couple of weeks ago, and today I was going to hook up the brakes. I bought a new breather bolt from wild horses to install the block on to the axle tube.
The new bolt does not fit the axle! The breather bolt that currie installed is smaller than that of a stock bolt. This sort of pisses me off because I expected the thread size to be the same as the stock size. After all, The axle is advertised as a 1966-77 bronco axle.

I can't just drill and tap the axle to fit the bolt because that would lead to metal shavings in the housing, and drilling it would void my warranty.

Ideas?

 

[73azbronco]

Call Currie and say "like, whats up here dudes, I paid sold green for this now it don't fit"

 

[SteveL]

Contact curry or 4wp and get the right sized block or drill it.

 

[Jakedog]

Contact curry or 4wp and get the right sized block or drill it.

I still need to contact Currie. I did check the Currie website and they don't have one on there that'll work. 4wp does not have one with long enough threads to hold the block for the brake lines.

I checked several shops around my area and no one has what I need.

I can't drill it or it will void the warranty.

I'm thinking of making my own.

 

[SteveL]

What about a threaded nipple and locknuts? Any chance of putting the bronco breather bolt in a vice and using a die to cut it down to the right thread? Maybe when you try Currie they can amend your warranty to allow you to enlarge the hole. I forget the process but I remember drilling something like this with a magnet to keep from going in. I forget if they attached it to the bit and went slow.

 

[ET]

If you have a good hardware store, maybe they have steel bushing/sleeve/spacer, that could take up the space for brake block?

Eugene

 

[DirtDonk]

Thanks for reminding me about this. I was going to be putting my Currie setup together and had forgotten that one of the complaints was that the hole was in the non-original location.
Didn't know, or had forgotten that I would have to redrill it too because it was the wrong thread.

I wonder what the point is? Maybe there is a Jeep vent bolt that is the right size? I do remember there was another bolt that was available from non-Bronco sources, but it was the wrong size for Broncos so I never checked them out.
Maybe some googling will net you the right bolt instead of all the re-doing stuff.
Shame you could not use ours, but that's your excuse to come up to the swap meet in October and "swap" it back to us for something your CAN use!

Paul

 

[Jakedog]

I will be heading out to budget bolt in the morning. I'm going to use a brass bolt and a nylock nut. I practiced drilling a hole through a bolt on my drill press this evening and it was pretty straight. Just gotta go slow.

Not sure why currie isn't drilling the vent to fit the original bolt. It would be nice to know that ahead of time when ordering. They need to mention things like that during the order process.

I did order my conversion u joint from Dennys driveshaft yesterday. Hopefully it will get here this week. The bronco hasn't been driven since December. Just the occasional start up to keep things lubricated.

 

[Scoop]

I simply used the hole in the Currie housing to install a hose nipple for the vent line. I then welded a proper size bolt to the housing to place the brake distribution block where I wanted it. (The head of the bolt was welded to the housing and a nut used to retain the block.) Works great. The vent and the distribution block do not have to be mounted together. IIRC the hole in the Currie housing is NPT and not intended for the brake block.

 

[DirtDonk]

That's a great way of doing it. Thanks for sharing.

So with the different shape of the housing, you were able to still use your original hard lines? Maybe with just a little bit of tweaking for angle?

Paul

 

[Scoop]

That's a great way of doing it. Thanks for sharing.

So with the different shape of the housing, you were able to still use your original hard lines? Maybe with just a little bit of tweaking for angle?

Paul

No. I needed to make new hard lines for the new rear disk brake set up. Stock lines might work with a little tweaking, but good time to change them out.