rear brakes...

So I picked up a 9" rear end out of 66 Thunderbird awhile back, and got it sitting under the rear of my sedan for mock up. The issue I have now is the drums are to deep and wont clear the body. My questions for the experts is, are there smaller (shallower) drums? And would I gain any room with disk brakes?

Is it the drums that are hitting or the tires on the drums? If you need more tire clearance you could possibly go with reversed rims.......not the usual ones that are reversed to get the tires out further, but ones to get them in closer to the center of the car.

My 27 has a rear out of a 68 Merc Montego that was a little wide, so I had offset wheels made to move the tires in closer to the body to look better.

As for narrower drums that would not accomplish anything as your axle flanges are fixed where they are and that is the widest spot on the rear.

Don

The drums themselves are just to wide. The braking surface is maybe 2 inches wide and there is at least another 2 inches of drum beyond that. I would imagine for cooling under braking. With the drums on the axle they stick out beyond the backing plate to far. For example if the axle measured 57.5" between the backing plates. Between the edges of the drums would be somewhere in the 55 inch range.

never seen an offset like that on a 9 inch/drum setup. you sure those are the right drums? seems wrong.

Can you post some pictures of what you have?

I'll try and get some pictures this weekend.

liljgoneman said:

never seen an offset like that on a 9 inch/drum setup. you sure those are the right drums? seems wrong.

Click to expand...

Ford did have some drums in the 60's on the Tbird and big fords that had a 1 1/2 to 2 inches lip past the brake surface. The lip flared out after it was past the brake surface. They also had to good size fins on them.

Fords idea was to have the drums stick out from behind the wheel to help cool them. It been a wail since I seen any but I think you can machine them down.

Also that rear being out of a 66 T-bird should have the 5 inch on 5 bolt circle.

So are they rare and worth anything to anybody? Can he get other drums to stick on there?

The bolt pattern is 5x4.5 on this rear end. My original thought was to have them turned down because they still have a lot of life left. But I wasn't sure if you could turn down a drum or not.