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9/19/23: Today I continued my battle installing my new Disk Brake kit from CPP. After watching the video last night on YouTube, I swapped the brackets, torqued the bolts and went ahead with the installation. I removed the drum from the hub, installed the hub and spacer on the rotor, pressed in the new studs, then installed the hub assembly on the spindle. When I tried to install the caliper I discovered I had installed the the wrong caliper mounting bracket. One step forward, two steps back. Did I say the instructions were lacking detail. I watched the YouTube video by Dave Welch from Brothers Truck and he stated that the offset went towards the outside of the truck. In my case that was totally wrong. I suspect CPP may have reengineered the kit and my installation was different. I wish CPP labeled the brackets or clearly showed which way the offset went in the instructions.

At this point, I am a self proclaimed expert on this part of the installation so it didn’t take much time to reverse my mistake.

A couple of installation tips I can pass along:

The drums are riveted to the hubs with no instructions on how to remove them. The Brothers YouTube video suggested grinding off the heads then knocking them out with a drift and hammer. If you ever tried this you know that it doesn’t work really well. An alternative method that works is to first drill the center of the rivet out with a 1/4” drill leaving about 1/8” at the very bottom. Don’t drill all the way thru as you’ll have nothing for the punch to rest on when you drive it out. just enough to get thru the hub to weaken the rivet. Try to get the drill centered as best as you can. Now use a 3/8” drill and drill down until you just reach the drum. At this point grind the remainder of the rivet flush with the drum. Take a punch/drift slightly smaller than the hole and drive it out. It will come out much easier as the 1/4” drill weakened the sidewalls of the rivet.

Once the drum is removed from the hub you’ll need to enlarge the holes for the new screws holding the spacer plate. The instructions say to drill the holes out to 3/8”. I did, and it wasn’t enough to get the flathead allen screws in. I opened it up to 13/64” and solved that problem but the taper on the screws bottomed out on the hub before it was pulled tight to the hub. I used a countersink on the holes I just enlarged which gave me the extra room the screws needed to get the spacer tight to the hub.

In the box with the calipers, I found what looks like a 1/4” thick 1-1/2” round gasket. I wondered why until I went to install the calipers. After struggling trying to get the caliper assembly on the rotor, it dawned in me that they used it to keep the pads apart against the piston and the caliper frame. Once inserted, the caliper went on easily.

One more suggestion. The kit comes with a replacement cap for the hub. I spent about 15 minutes trying to get it installed. Filing the edge trying to get it to fit. I gave up and used my old ones. They fit perfect and are easy to remove. I suspect the new difficult to install ones may be just as difficult to remove.

Hopefully the drivers side will go easy!