FE front brakes

[Snoop]

Hi Guys and Girls,
Been going through some fairly recent posts re changing to later model front drum brakes and i think i may know the answer. but here goes anyway!!
My fe ute has original front drums i think ? the brake shoes are about 39mm wide. I have some reline brake shoes and matching machined drums. These  shoes are close to 45mm wide.I think they are from an ek or ej but cant remember i brought them a few years ago. I also have the backing plates. Wondering if i can just fit new drums and shoes to  existing backing plates or do i need to swap over backing plates as well? There may be other stuff to do as well so any advise welcomed.
Cheers Snoop.

[ardiesse]

If your wider brake shoes look like the narrower ones, then they're FB/EK.  You'll need to use FB/EK drums (or buy new EJ/EH drums) and fit FB/EK front backing plates.

Rob

[Errol62]

Hi Snoop,
I can’t answer on the backing plates, sorry. I have been looking into running later EJ EH HD kingpin brakes on the front however. They are a much more efficient braking system, being self energising in design. The HD front brakes are even wider than FB etcetera however original FE EH rims have to be replaced with HD HR. Steering arms need to be changed to EJ HD kingpin also. I believe the later backing plates and steering arms bolt straight up to FB, and therefore FE FC front stubs.


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[Snoop]

Thanks for the advise guys, you have confirmed what i suspected.
Cheers Again Peter 

[Dr_Terry]

The bolt pattern for the backing plates is different for EJ to HR. These will not bolt up to FE-EK stub axles.

From memory the way to do it is to use an EJ-EH stub axle & fit it to an FB-EK upright, the kingpin is the same diameter. Then fit that assembly to your FE.

The FE-FC kingpins are smaller in diameter, so you cannot fit the EJ-EH stub axle straight onto an FE-FC.

Dr Terry

[Errol62]

I thought so, but was recently advised otherwise by a reliable source.

Checking the MPC, Terry of course is right. Steering knuckle varies in part number at least, between FE FC, FB EK, EJ EH, and HD (balljoint). Support however, is common FB to HD.


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[ardiesse]

Dr Terry wrote, "The bolt pattern for the backing plates is different for EJ to HR. These will not bolt up to FE-EK stub axles."

I'd been meaning to trial-fit an HD king-pin backing plate onto an FC stub-axle.  It looked like the parts would interchange . . .

Rob