How big of brakes

Can you get behind stock rims? Hoping to keep Da Dutch pretty stock in appearance, but definitely want to up the braking power. Will the 11" drums fit? I'm thinking no, but I could be wrong...

 

Gonna have to measure tonight. Meant to last night.

Guesstimating 15" - could very well be wrong.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/373237744/373239754ysaHAW
You're guess is as good as (well, probably better than) mine.

 

Yeah, saw that... unfortunately I'm about done spending money on the Jeep this summer. Next summer I should have plenty of cash built up for stuff like this. But its hard to justify $$ for wheels when I have a set, and I'm not anywhere near putting wheels back on anyways...

I did find it amusing that he has 3 tires that are alike and one different, as I'm in the exact same situation!! R)R)

 

As I recall the 15's will clear the 11" drums as long as they are normal width (8" or greater I think), NOT the 15's for the original skinny tires.

 

I am runnin 15X8s over 11 drums. they are KH but they came from a ford 4X4

 

Brian, I have 11's on stock skinnies. Two things, here: one, the drums are not finned, nor are they Jeep, as far as I know. Originally Ford, I think - part of an aftermarket kit at the time. Lots of folks scrounged their own Ford setups; I bought mine. Two, I had to "massage" the reinforced area between the center of the rim and the wheel rim itself. Just in the corners of the "notched" area. Three pound BFH, and two good whacks took out enough interference to clear. Been that way thirty years now....... $.02

 

I was able to do that to mine originally as well. Even though that seemed to work, the tires I have, while pretty narrow, are still wider than the skinny rims wanted. They are regular bias-ply mud tires not the original style NDTs or anything like that. So in the end I just got 4 wider (about 8") regular old rims (probably ford rims originally--got them from a junk yard so don't really know) and that did the trick all the way around.

Stan

 

I had to do that to a couple of my stock type rims as well.

 

The original 11x8 rims don't fit and the stock 15x5's don't either. I'm in that situation now w/ 10 beautifully sandblasted and painted rims that I have so much money into that no one would buy them. I found some 15x7 Aluminum Renegade rims that I'm going to use. I tried locating the original drums but no go.
Just so you know the gent coming down is 60 miles from Grand Rapids. You could always sell the ones you have and get mine? I'll sell them cheap as I need room in my small garage.

 

I am looking to do a brake overhall on my 56 CJ5 as a starting point. The stock brakes are just bad. Are the 11" drum brakes good enough to run 32" military tires on stock rims? Should I move to disk brakes? I can hardly stop now with 27" tires.

 

I can't offer advice on 11 inch drums, as none or our Jeeps have them. I can say that we just did a drum-to-disc conversion on our CJ6, and it isn't quite as straightforward as the tech notes would have you believe. A few "issues" that came up:
We bought our rotors and loaded calipers from Rock Auto (pretty good prices). There were 4 types of '76 Jeep rotors listed - 2 with 6 lugs and 2 with 5. It wasn't clear in their catalog (nor on the Raybestos or Wagner websites) which 5-lug rotor was 1.125 thick with the right diameter. We bought the wrong ones of course , but decided we'll sell on eBay rather than paying return freight. Bought the right ones locally. The hubs didn't seat well on the rotors - I could have machined away the radius on the hub inside that interfered , but didn't want a stress riser in that spot, so we cut a chamfer into the rotors. We found that the studs noted in the tech section were fine for length and splines, but were loose in the rotors. I didn't want to risk a wobble at speed, so we made up studs on the lathe using some big truck ones we had in the shop. The rest wasn't too hard, but I should mention that the new rotors should be trued on a brake lathe after assembly with the hubs, and with the new bearings installed. Even .005 of runout on a rotor will cause brake "throb".

 

I got my 11" brakes from a 67 wagoneer works great.No problems stopping my 6 with 31" BFG's except when there wet of course.