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Front hub replacement

MulePower

New Member
Local time
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Joined
Sep 25, 2023
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Location
NC
So I started working on the brakes of my "new to me" 68 superbee the other week. Rear shoes, springs, drums, wheels cylinders- everything went together easily- no hiccups. But the fronts have been a bear. Drums need replacing (worn down thin and have a large lip on the inside so i cant even mount it with the new shoes on. No shops in the area that I called could/would help remove the drum from the hub, do I figured I'd try my luck at using the Doctor Diff hub and a new drum (see if it works since I havent gotten a reply from emailing them).
After assembling it and mounting the hub to the spindle- it seems to mate up well (still waiting on the drum). However- looks to be a small gap between the hub and backing plate.
After looking at both the original hubs I removed- they look a little different and so does where they mount to the spindle. Can anyone help me understand what Im looking at? (I'm guessing on hub has a seal still attached and the other one stayed in with the spindle.
New to working on cars, so any help is appreciated!
The pictures only show one spindle (the one that correlates to the hub with the raised lip).

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You don't need a shop to remove the drum from the hub. Do you have an angle grinder? You can grind off the swages/swedges, put a socket or something similar sized behind the stud, and pound them out. Make sure you put a socket and support behind the hub so when you pound them out, you don't bend the hub. Swages circled in red. You can also use the search function to find more info about this on the site. There are quite a few posts on the subject.

Edit: nevermind, didn't see you already have new hubs

swages.jpg
 
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Those hubs are not designed to be stock replacements. They are for mustang rotors for disc brake conversion kits. There could be lots of dimensional problems, but the one I know about is the diameter for the mustang rotors is too small for mopar drums. Without modification the drums will not run true and vibrate badly.
 
Those hubs are not designed to be stock replacements. They are for mustang rotors for disc brake conversion kits. There could be lots of dimensional problems, but the one I know about is the diameter for the mustang rotors is too small for mopar drums. Without modification the drums will not run true and vibrate badly.
This is definitely good to know before I end up making a mess of things. Ill probably end up doing the grinding method to separate the original drum and hub like Sam69sat mentioned. I just hadnt read anywhere of people trying this so I figured Id give it a shot. Thanks for keepin me safe!
 
Update: got the hubs separated from the drums and put all the new brake parts together. Hub spins freely and all parts went on with no 20231125_111723.jpg20231125_111706.jpgissues. However- I now find that when I put the lugs on even hand tight- the wheel locks up and wont spin. I've measure the brake pads and the drum to make sure theyre all the right size and backed off the manual adjustet all the way. The drum slides on easily and spins freely without the lugs, but as soon as I hand tighten them, it locks up...
This is on both the driver and passenger sides, so something is definitely wrong.

The pictures show at the top of the backing plate, there is a slight indentation where the drum is making contact. I think this is keeping the drum from mating evenly with the hub and causing my problem...the drums are raybesyos from rockauto, and Im wondering if perhaps those arent machined properly (but for both to have the same issue)...

has anyone run into this and have a fix? The only thing I can think of is to find a machine shop that can grind down the inner lip of the drum enough so that it stops making contact. I just want to be sure Im not missing something else that is the real issue.
 
Did you verify that you have the correct part number for your application? They should be 1938R according to the application guide on raybestos.com.

Hopefully you still have the old drums so you can compare them. The first thing I would do is set both an old and new drum on a hard level surface and measure to the inside face where the hub contacts the drum. They could be improperly machined or labeled incorrectly.
 
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