New discovery! 4 wheel brakes may be easier than you Think.

[fordfanatic]

I've been messing around while waiting for donor front-end for the truck, and with good results, I think. I was reading where explorer rear-ends are the thing now in hot-rod world, with disc breaks, 31-spline axles, everyone is tossing our faithful 9-inch in the pile. So I was wanting more wheel choices any way, and have decided to keep my 9-inch, but change my bolt pattern to 5-4.5, which is the explorer. I'll keep you posted on redrilling axles and changing pattern, then I'll probably go with continental rear calipers, because the explorer has e-brake shoes, which is not possible with out the backing plate, so I'll fabricate mounts for the calipers, and figure out the cables later(shouldn't be too hard.) Now for the front, I've been reading about somebody saying '73 t-bird rotors were the same bearing and would give the 5-4.5 bolt pattern. Not So, they are 5-5 pattern and will not work, so 74-79 t-bird will not work either, nor any other ford platform will give you a 113/4 in rotor and 5-4.5, with the same bearings as 73-79 f series, but a 1973 Chrysler New Yorker has a 113/4 rotor with 5-4.5 bolt pattern and guess what-they share the same bearings as the 73-79 f-series truck! Woo-Hoo, I'm on a role. I'll keep everone updated on the progree of the 4-wheel disc break '71 F100.

[flyboy2610]

Good luck with it!

[fordfanatic]

O.k. Correction! I just removed backing plate and put rotor on , and the center hub opening is too small to go over our 9-inch axles. So I guess when I return to work tomorrow, I'll go through the books and find one that will.

When I find it, I'll post it.

[GT-Racer]

Please do I am interested in doing the same thing. But dont they allready make a disk brake conversion kit for 9 inch fords?

[willowbilly3]

I have 2 Expedition rear ends that are much beefier that the Exploder ones but pretty wide. I was thinking maybe those brakes could be adapted to a 9 inch, then you would have the good drum parking brake. That was always the problem with the Lincoln rear ends. The parking brake system was junk.