Any drawback to keeping the drum spindles on my 66 Valiant?

[AJ/FormS]

You couldn't give me 9" spindles.
You couldn't pay me enough to install them on my car.
You'll know why, when you see your wheel rolling down the road in front of you, hunting for a target. There are bigger bearings on lawn gliders, than are on the outboard end of one of those spindles.

 

[jas0162]

I put lots of miles on 9” spindles and a scarebird kit. It worked great and I never had a problem, but I always worried about those tiny bearings. The 10” inch brake spindles and hubs are much heavier built with better bearings.

 

[Super Sleeper]

You couldn't give me 9" spindles.
You couldn't pay me enough to install them on my car.
You'll know why, when you see your wheel rolling down the road in front of you, hunting for a target. There are bigger bearings on lawn gliders, than are on the outboard end of one of those spindles.

Yeah, I've broken a track rod (strut link) on my Mustang, fortunately not at speed. Really not something I want to repeat with any suspension part. But I'm getting older and don't often drive as hard as I used to. That's why I am trying to get as much information about the 10" drum brake spindle as I can. Not too scientific, for sure, because people don't drive the same and all the installations are different, but the experience here does matter to me.
It's easy to be tempted into the bigger, beefier, is better way of thinking. But I think it's fair to consider the alternative of keeping the 10" spindles.
And thanks for your input - I definitely would not use 9" drum spindles, even if I had them!

 

[Super Sleeper]

I talked to Wilwood after seeing this Hot Rod fit-up to a 65 Coronet.

Slightly different hub dimension (3.10" vs 3.24") but still an interference fit to the 2 7/8" center bore wheel. So I asked about spacing out 0.20". With the hub base radius of 0.38" and taper it might be possible. Anybody try this?

 

[72bluNblu]

I talked to Wilwood after seeing this Hot Rod fit-up to a 65 Coronet.
View attachment 1715467782
Slightly different hub dimension (3.10" vs 3.24") but still an interference fit to the 2 7/8" center bore wheel. So I asked about spacing out 0.20". With the hub base radius of 0.38" and taper it might be possible. Anybody try this?

With the taper that the Wilwoods have that might work. But keep in mind that’s the same as reducing the backspace on the wheel, it will limit your tire width. Basically it would make the cop wheels a 15x7” with a 4” backspace instead of 4.25”, which would mean you’d be maxed out with a 215.

 

[Super Sleeper]

With the taper that the Wilwoods have that might work. But keep in mind that’s the same as reducing the backspace on the wheel, it will limit your tire width. Basically it would make the cop wheels a 15x7” with a 4” backspace instead of 4.25”, which would mean you’d be maxed out with a 215.

Yes, absolutely true - but isn't is still less width than the 73-76 disk spindle adds? In any case, I'd have to mock-up the hub and wheel to confirm whether the wheel would seat onto a 0.20-0.25" spacer.

Thanks for bouncing these ideas back and forth!

 

[72bluNblu]

Yes, absolutely true - but isn't is still less width than the 73-76 disk spindle adds? In any case, I'd have to mock-up the hub and wheel to confirm whether the wheel would seat onto a 0.20-0.25" spacer.

Thanks for bouncing these ideas back and forth!

That's a good point, it depends on how much the Wilwood kit adds. I know wilwood says that kit doesn't add any width, but quite honestly I wouldn't depend on that because they never really say what they based that information on. But yes, that probably does still end up being less than what a 73-76 disk spindle adds. So maybe a 225/60/15 might still work. It's close with the 73+ disk spindles with the full 4.25" backspace of the 15x7" cop wheels. The other issue is going to be the spacer, you'll have to have a plain flat spacer for a 1/4". So that will probably mean longer wheel studs than what comes with the wilwood kit. Maybe not, but that's pretty much the upper limit for me for a plain spacer.

And no problem! I get it, it's a lot of money to commit and there are lots of things to consider.

Quite honestly with the way that Moog's quality has been dropping off lately I wouldn't count on their offset bushings being right anymore. Which makes the upgrade to a tubular UCA even more beneficial. And if you do that, the QA1's can be had in either large ball joint (52301) or small ball joint (52303). So you could run the 52303 QA1's and keep your 10" drum spindles and use the Wilwood kit. The wilwood kit will set you back at least $780 for the kit depending on your option, plus another $60 for the brake hoses, so minimum $840 for the wilwoods and you'll need a spacer on top of that and possibly longer wheel studs.

Or you could run the 52301 QA1 UCA's, get the large ball joint, and be able to bolt on DoctorDiff's 10.95" 73+ mopar kit for $470, which includes the stainless hoses at that price. And run the cop wheels with no spacers. Yes, the 73+ kit will end up being like 35 lbs heavier. But you can get all of your parts from the local parts store under a '76 Dart. And have the large ball joint and larger wheel bearings. Not as fancy as the Wilwoods, but more clamp force generated by the calipers.

 

[66Dvert]

I will definitely be upgrading my front 10" drum brakes to disk in the future. It seems to me like the options for disk brake conversion seem to fall either into changing out the spindles to later model disk brake spindles or keeping the drum brake spindles with a conversion bracket to the caliper (Leed or Wilwood). BTW, I do plan to go with 4.5" bolt circle and 15" rims when I do the conversion. The thing I wonder about is the small upper ball joint used on the 66 and the larger upper ball joint used on later models.
I saw one manufacturer of tubular upper control arms that suggested that their big ball joint UCA can be adapted to the early drum brake spindle by reaming out the spindle (MagnumForce). Is this a legit, viable solution? Is there really any drawback to keeping the small upper ball joint? I'm not really stuck on the idea of tubular UCAs but just the question of any limitations of staying with the drum brake spindles and the small ball joint.

Thanks - Jim

I did the scarebird route on all my small 9" drum spindles. I have about 35k on the 65 convertible daily driver I sold last year and 1 set of pads. I did go the 4.5 BBP on the front and had the rear axles plug in the big circle and redone for the 4.5 BBP also with a new big hole cut to access the bolts. since it was a /6 I'm not too worried about breaking the rear end. I've also got the small rearend inteh 273 thats got 17k on it and have not broke it yeyt. the disc brakes stop the car straight and even. no alignment needed since I didn't have to use different spindles. win/win for me

 

[Commando66]

Are you planning on utilizing the small bolt pattern on the Wilwoods? If so, I found that the hubs were only drilled for 1/2” studs on both large and small bolt patterns. That doesn’t work very well with SBP wheels.