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.
