Dana 27 Disc upgrade kit

[Ia2003]

I am installing the Disc brake kit onto my front Dana 27 on a '58 CJ5. From the pictures you can see that the rotor and hub are not seated far enough back on the axle. This is preventing me from installing the nuts that hold the hub onto the axle. It seems like the wheel bearings need to slide farther into the hub both on the front side and on the back. They dont want to move any further. Bearings are greased up and i used the wheel beating tool to push them into the hub. No dice. They dont want to go any further. Any ideas? Huge road block in this project.

 

[69jeepcj]

Hard to tell much by the pic, but I did notice it looks like your bearing isnt fully seated. The left side of your 2nd pic looks like it is seated but on the right side of your pic, it doesnt. Doubt it is your problem but should be fixed. Did you install the bearing seal on the back side of the rotor? I dont think the rotor will go on and sit correctly without it. If you replaced bearings did you replace the races too, and take out the old race before installing the new? Just trying to throw out a couple ideas

 

[Ia2003]

Correct. Bearings were not fully seated. After alot if trial and error (and grease) was able to get the bearings in. Yes, I have new races to go with them. The calipers will not mount correctly yet because the backside is rubbing agaibst the oil fill plug on the ball joint. More grinding needed... Any idea how tight the bolts should be against the outside bearing/race? Once i tightened then it became difficult to turn the hub by hand.

 

[69jeepcj]

If you are talking about the spindle nut that holds the bearing on, it should be torqued down to #50ftlb then backed off a 1/4 turn. Yes, you will probably need to grind some more on both the caliper bracket and ball joint area of the axle. Jp mag did a disk swap on a dana 25 and had to grind in those areas, I will dig it up in a few and post any tips they may have.

 

[Ia2003]

Thanks a lot!

 

[69jeepcj]

Ok found it. They ground the oil plug flat, but said you could get flush mount plug if you didnt want to grind it flat. It looks like they took off about a 1/4" off of the knuckle and just a hair off of the caliper, and just test fit everything before final fit.

 

[Ia2003]

Sounds about right. I didn't think of grinding the caliper but I think that will give me just the clearance it needs. The knuckle and caliper are just barely touching now.

 

[69jeepcj]

Oh yeah, the article said to make sure you take enough off of the knuckle because as your pads ware down the caliper will slide inward and if you didnt take enough off it will hit and leave you front brakeless.