My Rear Brakes

[tonycharger72]

Hi guys, thought i'd share what ive been doing with my rear brakes,

 

http://album.hybridz.org/showphoto.php?photo=3969&cat=500&page=1

 

This is basically the complete rear brakes from a

1985-1987 XF Ford Falcon,

 

What ya'll need for this conversion is,

Complete XF Falcon rear brakes, get everything, calipers, caliper brackets, rotors, all nuts and bolts, grab everything!!!

Try and do this privately, there is always someone wrecking an XF Falcon in Aus ,

The brakes are 286 x 24mm vented rotors with a PBR alloy single piston floating caliper with a 44.45mm piston and an external mechanical handbrake linkage,

 

To start with,

You have to get the rotor to fit over the hub,

 

There is 2 issues here,

 

 

1 - the rotors centre diameter is 71.5mm whereas the datsun hub centre diameter is 68mm,

 

 

2 - the hub is 5-stud, whereas the datsun rear hub is 4-stud,

For the 1st problem - you can either weld a spacer on the hub or you can press a spacer onto the rotor, either will work just fine,

 

For the 2nd problem - you can either re-drill the rear hubs to suit 5-stud or re-drill the rotor to suit 4-stud, once again either will work fine, as the ford pattern is 5 x 114.3mm (4.5") so there is enough room on the Datsun hub or Falcon rotor for the re-drilling, (i have pics of my new hubs but my camera seems to only want to give me pics that are 1.66mb so i got to re-size them as ive run out of space in my album),

Now, pull the rear hubs outta the rear struts, remove the backing plate aswell - should be looking at a bear strut,

Grab the XF Falcon rear caliper mounting brackets, these need a bit of modifying to get them to fit properly, there are a number of issues,

 

1st issue - the XF Falcon caliper brackets centre hole is to small to fit over the zed strut, so it needs to be enlargened (sorry i dont have a measurement or pic as my pics are too massive ,

 

 

2nd issue - the XF falcon bracket needs to be cut otherwise it will hit the struts (you really need pics for this as its bloody hard to describe), probably the best way to describe this is that the XF calipers have a bleed screw that is pointing north, so when cutting the caliper mounting brackets you need to keep in mind that when you mount the calipers this bleed screw needs to be close to pointing north,

3rd issue - this kinda ties in with the 2nd issues, you need to swap the calipers over, driver on the passenger side and the passenger caliper on the drivers side, this is because the Datto's hub is offset, so when you mount the caliper mounting brackets and the calipers, the calipers will hit the struts unless you swap the sides (sorry i pic would be better here aswell),

 

4th issue - when you install everything, the XF Falcon rotors, mounting brackets............etc..........etc, onto the z struts the Falcon rotors are slightly to tall, this means that the caliper does not centre itself properly over the rotor, so you need to put a 3mm spacer underneath the caliper mounting bracket (sandwitched between where the backing plate mounts and the caliper mounting bracket) to bring the caliper mounting bracket outward, thus bring the caliper outward, and get the correct spacing of the caliper over the rotor, what i did was cut up the backing plate and use it as a spacer, just cut everything away except were it mounts to the strut and it seems to work perfect ,

 

 

5th issue - you will have to drill 4 new holes into the XF Falcon caliper mounting brackets to suit the z rear strut mounting position, there is plenty of room for this, if theres not, you have the caliper mounting bracket in the wrong position : -)

 

 

So do all of the above, caliper mounting brackets are sweet and ready to go, mount your spacers and caliper brackets, bash your rear hubs back in place, now................

 

 

Grab your XF Falcon rotors and slip them on - DAMM!!! they hit the bottom of the strut, you have to hit this with the grinder to remove just a little bit of the bottom of the strut (once again need pics!!!),

 

 

Now you have done your grinding at the bottom of the rear struts and the rotor clears (give about 2mm clearance for good measure), i removed about 5mm of meat approx from the bottom of the strut,

 

 

Then it pretty much bolts straight up, if you can do all of the above machine work, this is an extremely cheap brake upgrade,

I paid $30AUD for the entire rear brakes of an XF Falcon (they are f#ckin everywhere in aus, just go private) and repco and a few other brake places locally will do a trade in for the rear calipers with cores for reco'd ones for about $200AUD/pair,

I havent yet figured out the handbrake, and i dont know how useful this going to be for yanks as you guys probably wont see to many XF Falcons your way, but for Aussie's this is a pretty cheap'n'easy rear brake upgrade

Also..................there is a rotor from a Mitsubisho Evo 4 that uses a 296 x 24mm vented rotor with an overall height of 46mm, this would need a pretty chunky spacer underneath the caliper mounting bracket, but would mean that you wouldnt have to grind the rear struts for clearance - its the right thickness for the XF rear calipers, i will probably end up using these rotors as i dont wanna grind up anymore struts ,

[tonycharger72]

Just got some more pics uploaded,

 

This photo shows where i cut the caliper mounting bracket,

http://album.hybridz.org/showphoto.php?photo=3977&cat=500&page=1

 

This photo shows the caliper mounting bracket mounted onto the zed rear struts,

http://album.hybridz.org/showphoto.php?photo=3976&cat=500&page=1

 

This photo shows where i had to grind the rear strut so the rotor would clear,

http://album.hybridz.org/showphoto.php?photo=3975&cat=500&page=1

[Here comes trouble]

Tony ----great project that will assist the down under members but the closest I haver ever been to a OZ Falcon was watching a Mad Max movie. I saw once where one of your countryman mated a VW engine to a Russian Ural motorcycle

[260DET]

That should do the job, Tony, nice work. What hubs did you end up with on the front?

[tonycharger72]

Thanks for the praise fellas,

 

I ended up going with a set of Hoppers Stoppers hubs, was a really tough call, but i thought they were the best compromise for me to go to 5-lug,

 

They are $320AUD/pair, look identical to those trailor hubs except that made out of 4140 steel and not cast iron, they use the stock zed bearings, have a provision for ABS (grab the abs sensors off a VN Commodore), if you could mount the rotor to the back of the hub there would be no change in offset, but the hub flange is only 10mm thick so you would have to drill 5 extra holes for the rotor to bolt to, so 10 holes in all (5 for the rotor, 5 for the wheel studs), Hoppers said it would be strong enought, but i ended up mounting a BA Falcon rotor over the front of the rotor, this has increased my front track approx 8mm/side (that thickness of the rotor hat over the hub face), not as cheap as the trailor hubs, but still not as expensive as some custom hubs id been quoted,

[260DET]

Increasing the front track 16mm in total won't cause any handling problems, what with the eccentric LCA camber adjusters mine has a lot more than that Not a bad idea to get the rear track out a bit though, if possible.

[tonycharger72]

I also have a spare crossmember which ive modified, bout 18mm up and 6mm out for the lower control arm pivot point, (JTR mod) not sure if ill use it, but this means that my track will have increased 14mm/side or 28mm in total at the front if i do use it,

 

I have a theory though.............

 

What if i could get some custom'd front lower control arms which would be shorter then stock lower control arms, but make them so they have a large amount of adjustment outwards - so when i install them, and if they are in their "stock" position the front lower control arms actually reduce the front track so its the same as it would have been if i hadnt changed the brakes and made the crossmember modification, ie........the track is stock,

but then i could adjust then out and increase my front track if i wanted to...............

 

Just a thought???

 

As for adjusting out the rear toe, besides buying MM's tranverse links or making them myself i can thinking of any other way to adjust the rear toe, is there any other way that you know of mate???

[JMortensen]

Reducing the track by shortening the control arm is fine so long as you can move the upper pivot in as well. If not you'll reduce the track and reduce negative camber as well. I think you'll lose a LOT more than you gain if you take this route.

[260DET]

What Jon said ^

 

For the rear, made a pair of adjustable wishbones for mine so camber and toe can be adjusted independantly. Alternatively, for camber purposes you could get the struts bent.

[tonycharger72]

I wouldnt be bothering with slotting the top of my struts, be best to take your advice, and not worry about shortening the lower control arms, i dont know if i will use the JTR crossmember ive made as ive read through your faq and your way of dealing with bumpsteer seemed like a better idea to me Jon,