94-04 Mustang GT/Cobra brakes on a Stude - How to

[tim87114]

Ah, Ok, Ya know I never looked at the Drums when I pulled them off. I stripped the spindle down but just set the drums to the side knowing I'd have to replace them. I need to check to see if the "hub" comes off the drum on my model/year of studebaker. I'm not sure at this point.
Also, on 47-49 it is a 4 lug bolt pattern. I'm going to use a ford Explorer rear which will change my bolt pattern to 5 on 5.
So after reading your post I'm figuring I need to source a hub. Also, I need to verify the mounting locations of the spindle bracket for the caliper. I take it your brakets are available?

[sbca96]

Yes, my brackets are available. You can have your old hubs redrilled
to match the rotor you want to use. You COULD even have a machine shop
make you some billet hubs to YOUR specification. There are a lot of
possibilities. You might be surprised how inexpensive some of this is
if you find a shop needing work - something thats pretty common these
days. There are also a lot of 4 bolt rotors available. You need to
figure out what the bolt spacing is, and then who still uses it.

Tom

[bensherb]

Hi Tom, I know this is an old thread, but I read all of them and thought it looked like an easy disk brake conversion. One question I have is did you ever run steel wheels on them?

I picked up a set of both the front and rear brakes from a '98-'04 Mustang, the one with the aluminum PBR front calipers. The nearest pick-n-pull had 14 of those Mustangs and all still had the brakes.

I turned down some spare Stude hubs I had to fit the mustang rotors, and fitted the Mustang studs to them. While I was at it I added a ring to the "snout" of the hubs so the wheels would fit hubcentrically. I spent the two hours to make a mounting bracket for the front, I made it from wood so I could check the fit before commiting it to metal, but it's exactly as a metal one would be, and bolted it up. Everything fits perfectly, the caliper carrier is equidistant from the rotor on all 3 sides as it was on the Mustang.

Now, just to check, I put one of my wheels on it, I've been running 15 x 6.5 wheels from a '97 Crown Victoria, they fit the car and the finned drums extremely well and are very common to use on the Hawks. Unfortunetly, they won't fit, they hit the caliper. A larger diameter wheel or an aluminum one (because of how the web meets the rim) would probably fit fine.

I can make them fit by adding a 1/2" spacer between the wheel and rotor, but that would require longer studs and it will moive the wheel out. I'm not sure how that might effect fender clearance.

I'm thinking moving the rotor to the back side of the hub, like Studebaker did on the Avanti and mounting the caliper bracket to the rear of the spindle flange might solve the steel wheel clearance issue, but it will still likely interfere, as it will only gain about 3/8" clearance.

Just thought this might be of interest. By the way, we're neighbors, I'm in Goleta about 1/2 the time but my shop is in Tracy.

[sbca96]

I havent run steel wheels on the setup yet, I do plan on getting a set of 15" for my Dads Avanti. I posted the Mustang 15" steel wheel part number on my Bracket info thread. Reading my 2008 post above again about machine shops made me chuckle. I spent months looking for a machine shop to make the GEN II, even being taken for a ride once! How times have changed!

I was concerned about machining a hubcentric surface into the hub, which is why I used shouldered wheel studs. I wouldnt use a 1/2 inch spacer along with the .27 thick rotor, that is over 3/4 bolt through spacing.

The Mustang wheels are available in a number of places online.

Tom

[bensherb]

Making the hubs hubcentric was no big deal. I just took the minimum off the hubs to make them round, made a ring and pressed them on. The Mustang rotors and Crown Vic wheels have the same center bore. The stock mustang studs are also sholdered and still locate the rotor on the Stude hub just as on the Mustang hub. I just made sleeves so they fit the Stude hub.


I found if I "fine tune" the Crown Vic wheels they will fit, a torch and hammer to bend the unwelded part of the web flange away from center is all it took. Best I can determine the 15" Mustang wheel has about 1" more backspace. If that's so, it would move the tire into the upper A arm. The only way to know for sure would be to find a Mustang wheel and try it.


While not my first choice or optimum, if done properly 3/4" bolt through is not a problem. My '54 Chevy wagon on a '75 Ford truck chassis has 2006 GMC Envoy 17" wheels on it. After changing the lug pattern to fit the GMC wheels I found the 17"wheels/tires would not clear the suspsnsion to turn. Fortunetly I had used 3" bolt in racing studs when changing the pattern, so I made 1.250" thick hubcentric spacers to move the wheels out to clear. It's been working fine for over 10 years. I feel far more secure with this set up than with those "spacer/adapters" they routinely sell in widths up to 3" these days, that bolt to the stock studs through a deep counterbore and have stock type studs, to mount the wheel to, deep in another counterbore.