Recently I upgraded the drumbrake system on my ’62 NewYorker Wagon and used some parts I had already gathered for the ’64 NewYorker.
On the first try on the ’64, I’ve been trying to go the stock drumhub and Cherokee rotor-route aswell but I believe I didn’t like the offset of the rotor.
Also, because the car was supposed to be getting some ‘decent’ amount of power under the hood, I definitly wanted 11.75″ rotors, so for the 2nd attempt, I went ahead and bought 1973 Chrysler rotors. These rotors are cheap and are about the beefiest you can find in these years.
Here’s a mockup with the Cherokee rotor:
2nd attempt,
I took a lot of measurements and finally drew up a design for the caliper-brackets in the computer and had these lasercut by a friend.
In the meantime I had bought a lathe so certain things were a lot easier to create and modify now.
I used the ’73 discrotors as a base and started working with these.
First thing that needed to be done was to increase the spindle-size diameter so the larger ’73 bearings could be used. I still had the spindle collars from the ’64 Chrysler I had made up earlier.
Had I bought ’69-’72 Chrysler rotors instead, then this wouldn’t be needed, since these have smaller bearingsizes, but these rotors are $150 each, so that was not an option for me.
Spindle collars and bearings mockup (here still on the ’64 spindle):
For the ’62 wagon I had redrill the adapter-plate since it’s spindles are different.
I had decided to re-use the adapters since these were spares. With the lathe I turned down the inner center-thickness for rotor-clearance;
I should have used some allen bolts as the stock spindle/steeringknuckle bolts rubbed the rotor slightly on the inside. Since it was a sunday and UNF allen bolts aren’t really growing on trees here I decided to machine the rotor slightly instead. (I hope to remember this when it’s time to replace these rotors again one day)
The caliper is a ’73 Chrysler unit with matching bracket. The bracket is not easy to come by anymore these days but I used what I had available here. Best thing also, I could re-use the existing, stock ’62 style brakehose again.
i recently purchased a 62 chrysler newyorker wagon 6 passenger i plan on doing the disc brake conversion as well
Any chance you’ll produce the caliper bracket for sale, or perhaps a digital blue print for others to use? Thanks, Chris
Hi Chris
I have no plans of actively selling these adapter plates myself.
While the conversion on the wagon seems to have worked out good, there is still some room for finetuning the location of a couple of holes in the adapter.
I will soon convert my ’60 NewYorker to discs aswell and I have revised the adapter a bit already, but I’m still in the mocking-up phase with this one.