Front disc brake swap - 4 bolt to Wide 5's

Yeah, it's not really a big deal. I'm surprised Mark wouldn't do it.

Do you have a thread/pitch gauge? There is one in the HF metric tap and die set $16.  It will give exact size.  Or take stud to Lowes and match up with a nut in their drawer bins.  Fastenal in FWB has good selection but you may end up buying more than 8 needed. The ones from Amazon are 12/1.75 - so smaller than your 14 mm.  They are 50 mm in length vs your 40 mm but doubt that would be issue. Amazon has 40 and 45 mm length but $4 more for some reason.  I think std VW lug bolts are 12x1.5mm.

I would absolutely, positively NOT use stainless hardware on the this, under any circumstances.  Commoonly available stainless hardware is unbelievably soft on the hardness scale. 

There are several different angles that are used on countersinks.  A standard American SAE countersink is 82 degrees, while a typical metric countersink is 90 degrees.  Many lug nut countersinks are 60 degrees, but VW/Porsche also use ball seats (that's probably what is on your adapters). 

This can be confusing, however if your are using metric flat head screws, you need 90 degree countersinks that are the same diameter as the largest portion of the screw head. 

Also, like Stan said, do NOT use stainless for this application.

Ditto on the stainless. I only use stainless hardware to secure stuff that is NOT load bearing.

I'd use some Grade 10 or maybe some AN military grade stuff. Damn the cost, those wheels need to stay ON.

This may be harder than it should be. I spent my lunch break looking for M14 - 1.5 flat-head socket cap-screws, and came up empty. I also did a bit of digging regarding James observation regarding the taper of metric flat-head cap-screws. He’s right— metric tapers are different than SAE.

A carbide 90* countersink cutter capable of cutting up to 1 inch is 200 bucks or so.

Given all that, this would be a lot easier if the threaded holes were 12mm, as a standard Beetle hub would be. In that case I would just get standard grade 8 half inch flat head socket cap screws, and drill and tap the hub for half inch hardware, then just use a standard countersink cutter and be on the way.

In this instance, I think the main problem is the fine 1.5 threads in the hubs. In the absence of the proper hardware, I suppose one could get to M14- 2.0 by use of Time-Certs, but there would still be the Weird-Al shoulder taper.

Then again, I suppose if one is already buying a Time-Cert set, it would not be that hard to just take the holes to 1/2” SAE by use of Time-Cert, then use the bolts and countersink cutters that everybody already has.

It’s stuff like this, right here, that is why it takes so long to build a speedster from scratch. 

I just ran to the local hardware store and bingo, the required size is:

14Mx1.50 Fine, 40 mm length.

May be unobtainium territory.

Somebody somewhere makes the bolts you need. I’m a 54-year-old man doing a fairly complicated search on a phone while I try to eat. Others may have better luck. 

I have a Fastenal about 5 miles from my house. If you can find them online I can pick some up and send 'em your way.   Just holler.

T

http://www.purems.com/search/

I may be back to swapping the discs if possible, or just junking what I've got and buying a wide five disc kit for the front.

Or I could just stop obsessing, but there is no fun in that.

How would I determine what wide five discs are compatible with what I already have?

Start with the spindles? Pull the discs and take some measurements?

Go on vacation?

Start with the spindles. Are they drum spindles or disk spindles. Work your way out from there.  Spindles are cheap.

I have 2.5" drop spindles you can have if you want to go that route.

Vacation. Definitely vacation.

Dumb question: Since the current brakes are disc, wouldn't the spindles automatically be disc as well?

Has anybody installed the CB Performance Ball joint front end disc brakes with the two piece rotor?  On sale at $549.00 down from over $700.

The EMPI (makes me queasy to even think about it) are probably what I have now and they have been fine, but I wonder about current quality as opposed to mine from 2002. The new EMPI's are only $50.00 less than the CB version and are zero offset.

The CB's say they widen the track by 7/8" either side, but what I have now with the spacer and adapter do about the same thing.

Fronts? That's a no brainer. CB all day long.

Panhandle Bob posted:

Dumb question: Since the current brakes are disc, wouldn't the spindles automatically be disc as well?

Used to be that spindles were changed to one with the 2 threaded bolt tangs for affixing calipers (OEM Ghia style).  New conversions out now use an add-on 3 bolt bracket that the calipers are affixed to.  That's probably what widens the track too.

I do have a pair of old drum brake front spindles you are welcome to.

Lots of spindle love up in this thread 

Stan Galat posted:

(I’m by no means a metric hardware expert, but 8.8 seems to be the metric equivalent of Grade 8).

I'm definately going to stop posting from my phone. 

12.9 is the equivalent to Grade 8. 8.8 is just common hardware.

So, I need to check the spindles to see if they have two mounting tangs or three.

Is this the epitome of "Everything old is new again"?

If you have OEM Ghia like spindles they look like this - the caliper bolts directly to the spindle

Ball joint spindles have 3 holes on the flat surface for attaching a drum backing plate. No tangs. The reason disc kits for ball joint spindles add width is the caliper bracket has to bolt somewhere sturdy and be thick enough to handle braking forces. So hub and wheel get pushed outward.