Leaderboard

Well, I completed my front brake upgrade, gone are the 10 1/2" rotors & in their retired place are a pair of 12" rotors. My approach for this was to maintain the original W calipers & just install larger dia rotors in the same manner that GM did when replacing the 10 1/2" rotors with 11 1/4" rotors. The W calipers are more than adequate on their own merits. The 11 1/4" calipers are pushed further out from center by a later design in the caliper bracket adapter. Seeing as I didn't want to purchase & then alter the 95-96 adapters I reconfigured what I had on the car. To do this alteration one has to remove the adapter that is welded to the steering knuckle. One has to cut away the outer section of the *ears* that the caliper bracket is bolted to. I sourced a length of 1/4"x2"x 12" A36 hot rolled mild steel flatbar, this bar is already stronger than the stamping of the adapters & the flatbar is thicker than the adapter by .050 thou. Starting with the drivers side which being done 1st served as the guinea pig for any mistakes I know I would make. I cut off the adapter, gave it a blasting, laid it out on a workbench & proceeded to mock up what the new longer *ears* would look like to get what was needed. Out of the 12" of flatbar I cut 4 *ears* each the same size, from there I laid out on each one the location where I would need to drill the 9/16 hole for the thru bolt. The *ears* have to be shaped into a circular manner on their edge so as to fit into the valley on the backside of the caliper brackets & be able for me to pivot them to get the appropriate angle before tacking them to the adapter. This mod requires that the new *ears* be overlaid onto the backside surface of the adapter. The new rotors *hat* is 1/4" deeper than the original rotor so the need for 1/4" flatbar to move the caliper back inward to get the proper location for the new rotors. Now the adapter has to be fastened back into place on the knuckle behind the hub assembly, install the new rotor onto the hub & lock it into place with a couple of wheel nuts, bolting loosely the *ears* to the cast caliper bracket I can now place the bracket over the rotor to get an approx location where the position will be that is the same as the original caliper was placed. I now install the caliper & the new pads into the bracket & slide the entire assembly over the new rotor, getting an accurate height position for the caliper on the rotor I now need to check that all of the caliper pad is contacting the rotor face. Seeing as the 12" rotor has a larger diameter one needs to make sure that the outer edge of the rotor will clear the inside edge of the stationary bracket but get all of the caliper pad on the rotor surface. I had to remove the brackets & mount them into a bench vise an carefully remove approx .030 tho of surface inside the very upper edge of the upper & very bottom edge of the lower portion to expand the radius to get the needed rotor clearance as it spins inside the stationary bracket. After doing this I can now reinstall the assembly, position the assembled caliper & bracket, position the new *ears* over the cut off ends of the adapter, tighten down the bolts to hold the *ears* where I want them & now tack the upper & lower *ear* into position. I repeated this same procedure for the right side but it went much faster seeing that after completing the left side I now have a template use for the right side. The welding was simple, remove everything from the car, bolt the cast caliper bracket to the adapter to prevent the adapter from warping while welding, mount them into a vise and run the beads, a flat downhand is best for this, the 71M wire puts down a nice wide bead to get maximum coverage for strength in a single pass. This welding procedure requires a minimum of a 200 amp mig, the wire I used was a deep penetration fabrication flux core wire for argon/c02 for heavy fab work such as construction/ship building. A 70S is not recommended. After getting everything assembled back together the last thin to cover is the new rotors hub opening, the W hubs are 70mm dia, the new rotors are 71 mm opening, this means that a 1mm shim is required to slide into the center of the rotor to properly center it over the hub. This was relatively easy, I pick up some 1mm stainless sheet steel & cut two shims 1/4" wide & to length & slipped them into the center of the rotor around the hub stub, then slide the rotor onto the hub. Worked perfect. It's been 2 weeks now since completion, after bedding in the new pads I have done some mild to moderate brake stops, working up to a few panic stops. The difference is instantly noticeable. The car just hauls down to a stop in a much quicker, shorter amount of time. Now since a few years ago when I did the booster upgrade the pedal feel at that time was instantly changed. Going from a hard, less than desirable *no assist* feel to a one can literally stop the car by using ones hand on the brake pedal, the booster supplies so much assist the pedal is like a feather to press. The pads because of their shape do not cover the entire rotor contact face, approx 70% of the rotor surface is made use of & that's the outer portion of the rotor. I have to believe that the smaller 11 1/4" rotors see this as well, not having had any in my hands to compare the contact area with the 10 1/2" rotors I'm pretty sure that THOSE rotors may have a larger dia hat area that reduces the contact area to something similar to the 10 1/2" rotors, these Ford Crown Vic rotors have a *hat* area that is the same as the 10 1/2" rotor hat. All in all...well worth my time & effort & what did it cost me? ...the price of a pair of new rotors & pads & a length of flatbar.