Brake Work Update

For almost the entire summer, this poor Jeep has been confined to the make shift garage in the backyard.

The reason was simple, no brakes, no fun. It has been on jack stands the entire time. Had to be, when you take apart the brakes, you need to remove the hubs. No hubs, no tires.

But there is a glimmer of hope for this old Willys. If all goes well this Friday, the brakes will be done. Installed, working. And if they are working, this Willys will hopefully be able to come out and play in a nearby field. We shall see. Stay tuned.......

The Quest

About 30 seconds into assembling the first drum brake, we came across our biggest surprise as far as parts. With the wheel cylinder already mounted on the backplate and the backplate attached to the axle, all we needed was a wheel cylinder link.

A wheel cylinder link is what is pictured on the right, and it is placed between the brake shoe and the wheel cylinder. For reasons I can not explain, it did not come with any of the hardware that was purchased and so far no one sells it locally at Auto Zone and Pep Boys.

I have 3 of them, as they were left over from the hardware that was left on the donor backplates.

So, I am on a quest to find 5 more of these wheel cylinder links. If you are doing the 11 inch brake drum swap, make sure you secure these parts! 9 inch drum brakes do not have wheel cylinder links, so you need to find them with your 11 inch drum brakes. We can not assemble any more brake hardware until I find more wheel cylinder links.

My first stop on the quest is the local Jeep dealership. Then maybe a junkyard, and then.........who knows?

Progress

The picture says it all. This picture was taken of the front left wheel, and as you can see, it has been reassembled. All it needs is a brake drum, some bolts, and a brake hose hooked up and it is ready to roll.

The hub has new bearings and new studs. We are setting aside the left turning lugs and studs. Nothing against them, but I am certain they will get torn off by an unaware mechanic with a pneumatic impact wrench.

1 down, 3 to go!

All it needs is a Master Cylinder.......

As a wise friend of mine said, if that is all in needed, he would have fixed himself. How true how true how true.........

I can tell you with certainty that the Willys Jeep has no brakes. And when I mean no brakes, I mean nothing. Other than a few brake lines running along the frame, there is nothing left to take off. Master cylinder, brake drums, back plates and all misc parts that make brakes work are either in the garbage or sitting on the floor of the work area. Quite literally, there is nothing left to remove.

That is good news, because from here on out, we will be rebuilding, instead of tearing down. The donor back plates are wirebrushed and painted and ready to be installed. Parts are being gathered and arriving daily. The brake drums are having the studs removed at a machine shop, so we can install brand new studs to attach to the wheels.

I am certain that as of this post, there will be more items to purchase, I already know I need some more studs. But all I can say is this, we are very close to rebuilding a brand new brake system for a Willys Jeep.

Innovation

So when working on brakes, and axles in general you have to figure out how to turn nuts and bolts while the axles are freely spinning. It can be a little annoying.

So in this picture, you see my solution. A wooden plank with a 3/4 hole in it to attach to a hub. It hits the fender and stops the rotation. Very simple, and does the trick.

With that solution, I was able to make great strides in the tear down process. Almost done with the tear down, and getting excited about the rebuild.

The most exciting part was pulling the rear hubs. They came off with a large bang and flew across the floor. Glad I knew to stand off to the side.

Comparison of Drums

Drew is demonstrating the size difference between 2 rear drums. The size and weight are significant, who thought 2 inches would make so much difference!

Anyhow, the bolt patterns on the back plate and studs match, so it looks like we have a fit. Can't wait to get this project done.

Wagoneer Brakes

So I have already mentioned we are doing a brake drum swap. We are converting the CJ-5 from 9 inch drum brakes to 11 inch drum brakes. A description of the conversion can be found here.

Anyhow, here are the donor parts. They came off a 1970's Jeep Wagoneer. They are back plates and brake drums. They are already turned, so we know they will work. So what needs to be done is to fix some of the stud bolts and sand blast the parts and maybe a little paint.

I am going to try and document this process, for my sanity and in case any one is reading.