I have a centered waggy 44 for the rear of my rig. Who can tell me how to run disk brakes int he back of this? What parts do I need, and where can I get them? Do I use the Weld on brackets form A&A Mfg?

Dima

if you can find a rodeo in the junk yard you can get all the brakets off of those, plus there 6 lug to

Yes on the AA brackets
mid 80's Monte Carlo Front calipers
front disks from late 80's early 90's Chevy 1/2 pickup

Do a search on my name, I think I've posted the specific year for the disks on one or two brake related threads.

Dima, my 44 has Explorer rear brakes that have integral drum e-brakes built in. The Currie HP44 rear end was installed before I bought the Willys. Not sure where the brackets came from, but my rotors are redrilled for the 5 on 5.5. FWIW Caddy rear brakes suck. I have rebuilt many of their calipers.

another option (in case you need a regular cable ebrake) is caddy calipers. the most difficult part of getting them to work is bleeding them. I did this conversion and am still in the process of building some brackets for the ebrake cables. man these things are a PITA to bleed :). Not sure about the suckage factor Peter C talks about but you do have to be careful about what you get from the wrecking yard if you go that route:

1. '90s Chevy K1500 1/2 ton vented rotors (make sure they are the 1" thick rotors, a HD version came with 1 1/2" thick rotors which will not work). At Kragen, I used a '91 year as an example. perfect fit over the flange of the 6-bolt D44 waggy rear axleshaft. I compared the '89 GMC 1/2 ton rotors someone gave me to the K1500 rotors and they're exactly the same(Thanks Muffler Bob, the K1500 rotors were like $35/ea)
2. Rear Calipers with integrated e-brakes. These calipers come from 79-85 El-Dorado, Riviera, and Toronado and 80-85 Seville. I went to the pick-n-pull in Rocklin and found a few donor cars. It took me a couple of rigs b4 I found some calipers that weren't leaking and were fairly clean. If you want to buy them rebuilt, they'll cost you about $70+$40 core each I think. You can verify with Kragen. They cost me about $30 for the set at pick-n-pull. Bleeding these things is a real pain. read thread response #13 and #16 at http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=292583 for instructions.
3. weld on caliper mounts from A&A Mfg (www.aa-mfg.com). I just welded the caliper brackets straight on the axle tube as shown in the picture. Part # AA-113A(if you want the larger caddy calipers, you will need a different bracket). I have an extra just in case you screw up on one of them like I did :). the caliper bracket was a little too tall for my brakes so I used a grinder to get it to sit on the axle tube at the right height. B4 you weld it, first you should run some lug nuts down on rotors to make sure the rotor is straight. then you should install new brake pads and the caliper on the bracket and need to clamp down on the e-brake to stabilize and center everything. tack weld it and then make sure nothing is rubbing. once you're sure everything is straight and not rubbing, weld it up.
4. wilwood proportioning valve or something comparable. Not sure if it made any difference. Try your stock system first, if it doesn't work, then try the proportioning valve.
5. caliper mounting bolts/alignment pins. just pick them up at the wrecking yard when you're pulling the calipers.
6. brake lines - grabbed the new factory lines. any soft line that you can tie in to a hard line on your axle and fit the banjo AND hard line fittings should be sufficient. See the pictures for an example.

Quick note about installation: D44 rear drum brakes use the drum backing plate as a spacer between the semi-floater axle and the axle tube. I ended up taking a sawzall to my backing plates so that I could keep the spacing. Spacing is fairly important for bearing location and etc so you might consider doing this or get the spacers made.
Another note: when welding the rear caliper brackets, you want to make sure that you have them exactly where you


Just in case you want to do some more reading on Cadillac calipers or rear disk swaps, here are some of the links I got my information from:
http://classicbroncos.com/reardiscs.shtml - has some good pictures of the calipers internals and ebrake setup.
http://www.mpbrakes.com/trouble17.htm - read the last troubleshooting item.
http://www.tsmmfg.com/Troubleshooting.htm#1 - explains how to adjust the parking brake arm. I used these instructions with the pictures from the first link to understand :)

Thanks for the help guys. The only problem I have is the space between the flange and the outer retainer on the 44. I understand there there is usually a backing plate there, but I don't have that. This means I have a space between all that crap. Is there a disk brake bracket that fits in there and takes the place of the backing plate? If not, what did you guys do in order to cure this issue.

thanks
Dima

I used a sawsall to cut the drum backing plate down so that just the mating surface(and a little extra metal) was reused.

I did try to use the drum backing plate and just cut part of it down to reuse to weld the disk brake bracket on to but I started worrying about exact location of the disk brake bracket and strength of a partial drum backing plate. decided to just cut/weld :)

I actually just finished this on my XJ 44, using ford Crown Vic caliper brackets. The mid 90's ford RWD sedans use a caliper bracket on the 8.8 that has the same bolt pattern as the flange on the end of the XJ D44. Used the crown vic calipers and rotors...only thing is I had to enlarge the center holes of the rotors slightly to fit over the D44 axleshaft flanges.

For the retainer plate, I went to the Jeep dealership and got a set of Rubicon rear retainer plates...the holes aren't quite right and require some redrilling, but the middle of the retainer plate is raised 1/4" or so and is the right size for holding in the D44 bearings. I redrilled it for the XJ D44 pattern and the thickness of it was perfect for going through the caliper bracket and holding the bearing in place.

I plan on running a t-case ebrake and disks on the rear of my waggy 44. What calipers should I get since I don't need the ebrake on the caliper?

Hodie

i used A&A caliper brackets, 92 s-10 4x4 front calipers, and rotors off an 88 chevrolet SWB stepside 4x4.

I went with the AA brackets and cadi calipers. Don't do it!!!!!

Call Trevor @ WFO in Auburn. He has a source for a bolt on exploder system that was cheaper than what I paid for the calipers. 530-268-9494

Hell we just torched the brackets out of 3/8" plate. After they were cleaned up, they looked really good. Made some cardboard templates first though.
S10 4x4 front Calipers and YJ rotors (on an XJ 44) and the stock proportioning valve works perfectly (this is on a TJ).

I have a passenger-offset 44 from a Waggy. went with post '88 Cheb 1/2ton front rotor and caliper. fabbed my own bracket. Drilled and mounted a shear pin. Machined out the center of the rotor to get clearance for the Mitchell Differential FF swap (uses 1/2 ton front bearings, Moser shafts, it's pretty sweet).

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=189243&stc=1

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=189242&stc=1

i got mine from TSM, full kit with everything you need.