The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop six lug disc brake kits

I've been working on two six lug disc brake kits. One came from the Buffalo, it is a bare bones kit with tiq welded caliper brackets from medium strength steel. It includes all the fasteners, the brackets, and 1/4 inch spacer plates to use with your stock hubs, rotors you find, and calipers you find. The rotors for his kit are from '71-'84 1/2 ton 4x4. Calipers are '77-'78 Chev 1/2 ton 4x4 or '71-'76 Chev Impala. You also need the hoses (Carquest SP6210 recommended.) When I bought my rotors, I found they did not have the three tapped holes for 3/8" machine screws needed to fasten the spacer plate to the stock hub and the rotor. After chewing over this situation and trying to find the drilled and tapped rotors, I decided to use some bicycle cone nuts with some 1/4" bolts so I could accurately hold the hub and rotor together to drive in the studs. Once I get three studs in, then I will drill three 5/16" holes in the rotors and use a tap to put the threads in. The spacer plate is very accurately fabricated and provides just enough clearance to allow for a little paint on the hubs. I used the electrolysis system to clean my old rusty hubs. They look pretty good now, but have not been painted yet.
I have not done much with the second kit from Classic Performance. The spacer plates will not fit the unpainted hubs and will need to be reamed. The rotors provided already have the tapped holes. I did notice the three countersunk holes in the spacer plates are a little big for the machine screws.
Taking the drums and hubs apart is not very hard. I used a brass pipe flattened a little to drive out the old bearing races. Then the hubs went through a hot tank degreaser and electrolysis derusting.
There is a lot of stuff to paint and clean. I also changed out the worn, tired tie rod with the butt weld on one end for a one inch extra heavy with modern ends from Classic Performance.

A friend of mine just bought the CPP kit and I've been wondering how it would go together. I used a 5-lug kit on mine.

Hi
Curious to know how everything is coming together. I was looking at the buffalo kit too, but still waiting for the $$$. Is it worth the $$? Or is the other kit better? I saw on the net somewhere that a fellow had used Nissan Hardbody 2 wheel drive six lug hubs on his 48 Chevy PU, and machined a "cone spacer" to go between the Chevy spindle and the Nissan bearing races. Then fabricated a simple plate to mount the Nissan caliper, had some SAE to Metric hoses made up, and then used a master cyl from a newer disc braked chevy. Wish I could find the article again....
Garry

The advantage of the CPP kit is that it is complete! I mean you don't have to chase around trying to find the banjo bolts you need for the new hoses (included), or to drill and tap your rotors (CPP=pre-tapped.) Doing two projects at once, with two different kits, has been an advantage at least in locating the needed parts for the bare bones Buffalo kit.
The advantage of Buffalo's kit is that you MAY be able to save by scrounging the rotors and calipers from a wrecking yard or swap meet. But try finding the banjo bolts! Actually, there is a learning curve, and I'll probably use his kit for other trucks now that I've been through the drill. His spacer plates and brackets fit up without any issues. The CPP spacer plates had to be reamed on the id to fit the bare stock, cleaned hubs.
The calipers provided with the CPP kit have more bulky castings, and were ground down for clearance. The ones I bought from Carquest for Buffalo's kit have smaller castings and do not have the clearance issues.
He recommends using '71-'84 Chev 1/2 ton 4x4 rotors and either '77-'78 Chev 4x4 or '71-'76 Chev Impala calipers. I used the 4x4 stuff to stay all truck.
Don't forget you will also need the roller bearing kit. I posted the bearing #'s here in another thread.

Splash - on the Buffalo kit can you use your stock 15" rims or do the rivets hit?

I turned down a set of 4x4 disks to 11.5" in diameter and this setup required no spacers and it cleared the rim. I haven't run it yet on the road, but the fit up was good with about 1/8" clearance on all rim interference points with no grinding on the caliper.

Ken, I went right out and put the hub/rotor assembly on the stock 16 inch wheels (off the truck.) It looks very tight. I've beeen holding off putting everything back together until I got the new drag link and 1" tie rod, but am concerned about what I just saw. I hope to investigate some more tonight. Buffalo's spacer plates are 1/4", a little thicker than CPP's, Will report more later. :confused:

Garry K, the article you mention is in the Stovebolt Tech Tips.

disc brakes

I'll be fitting up my CPP brake kit soon. Today I got the spindles back on the axle with new king pins and got one re-sprung front spring on with new shackles and bolts.