Greetings Jeremy,
Thank you for posting the brake swap information. It helped me to come up with a solution for my out of round Eaton drums.
I did the brake swap in a pic-a-part yard and purchased the complete rear end with the 14BFF brakes.
Heres a pic of that Eaton rear end:
I put the larger 13" X 3-1/2" brakes from a 1982 JB8 optioned P30 Step Van. They fit perfectly.
One subject that I have found that has not been touched on here is the Eaton's hub bearing lubrication system. The Eaton uses gear oil to lubricate the hub bearings. I do not know anything about the 14BFF hub bearing lubrication system but it could very well be the same as the Eaton using gear oil from the housing to lube the hub bearings. However, the Eaton axles did use oil slingers to help prevent oil contamination of the brake linings where the 14BFF I pulled the rear brakes from did not. The Eaton drums have two holes to accommodate this in their design and assist in extracting any oil seepage from inside the drums.
A pic of the Eaton drum with the oil slinger holes:
The 14BFF drums do not have these holes.
A pic of the 14BFF JB8 option drums without the holes:
The oil slinger system is a two piece system with a slinger on the axle housing spindle and a slinger on the inner drum flange mating surface.
While it is necessary to remove the slinger off the housing spindle to install the backing plate the pictures you have shown do not have this slinger reinstalled.
Here is a picture with the slinger reinstalled after the 14BFF backing plate has been installed:
A poor pic of the slinger mounted inside the drum (Eaton drum left, 14BFF JB8 drum right) This pic was actually taken to show a comparison of the brake contact surface area between the drums:
A better pic of the slinger that goes on the inside of the drum:
Since this oil slinger design is in the original engineering of the Eaton axle would it not be important or beneficial to retain this design with the 14BFF brake conversion? What do you think?
It would be my conclusion that it would be best to retain this design and drill the holes in the 14BFF drums.
I would accommodate that by mating the drums together with a few lug studs and with a transfer punch transfer the location of the holes to the 14BFF drums. I would then drill 1/8" pilot holes (to retain accuracy and drum balance) and then drill the pilot holes to proper size.
A pic of the drums mated together:
The proper location of the brake drums oil slinger holes:
A transfer punch is used for accuracy to attain the proper hole center locations:
I found wheel fitment and clearance not to be a problem on my 16" wheel dually application. The 16" wheels and wheel weights had plenty of clearance with the 14BFF drums.
A few pics of the wheel to drum clearance:
Lots of space to spare for wheel weights:
Hard to tell from this shot but the clearance is there:
Looking straight down thru the drum wheel clearance you can see the hand hold holes on the opposite side of the budd wheel:
Again Jeremy thanks for the write up. It did help a lot with my conversion.
Hope the info I have posted helps to enhance your presentation.