Hub Swap Questions

blueovaloh87

Registered User
I am new to this whole hub swap thing..but I have a few questions such as So far I figured I need 94 Stang Front Hubs/Hub Assembly & 99 Cobra Rear Hubs. Now For the brakes.. on the front can I just buy 94 Stang rotors and keep the same pads and calipers. Then for the rear can i use the 99 cobra rotors or are those far too big and if not do i just need to get some bird rotors machined. by the way I own a 92SC and i am just looking for more selection while doing some small upgrading. Also has anyone ran into any sort of problems while doing this hub swap. I have found out that i have all the parts very readily avail. I can get frt. & rear & rims/tires for about $625 and i and my dad are able to do all the work at home. Now other than normal mechaincs tools do i need any specialty tools?
 
I think if its a 92 and under SC you need to swap front spindles as well. Unsure if thats only when going cobra upgrade or because of the hub itself being different
 
You will need to upgrade to a '93 or newer spindle as the older style has a different method of mounting on the brake calipers and there's no upgrade for those. Once you've gone that route you can look at getting PBR calipers from the mustan setup etc.

The hub is also slightly different and most importantly a HECK of ALOT cheaper with the newer style. At this point in time, you can swap out your hubs and go to the mustang 5 X 4.5" bolt pattern if you so desire.

Here's 1 article on the swap...

http://members.tccoa.com/dlf/Article.html

Get ahold of fasted to get the brackets so you can upgrade your rear brakes if you want to do that.
 
Still not getting it all...

I have been told that i would need 92 and up spindle...and what about the brakes!...nobody has answered what i have asked about the brakes...
 
I am new to this whole hub swap thing..but I have a few questions such as So far I figured I need 94 Stang Front Hubs/Hub Assembly & 99 Cobra Rear Hubs. Now For the brakes.. on the front can I just buy 94 Stang rotors and keep the same pads and calipers and rotors. Then for the rear can i use the 99 cobra rotors or are those far too big and if not do i just need to get some bird rotors machined. by the way I own a 92SC and i am just looking for more selection while doing some small upgrading. Also has anyone ran into any sort of problems while doing this hub swap. I have found out that i have all the parts very readily avail. I can get frt. & rear & rims/tires for about $625 and i and my dad are able to do all the work at home. Now other than normal mechaincs tools do i need any specialty tools?

First-you aren't limited to 94 Mustang front hubs. Any Mustang 5 lug hub with ABS will work. The easiest thing to do is to re-drill the stock rotors to the Mustang pattern and use all your stock calipers. You can't upgrade to larger front rotors without changing the calipers and going to 93 and later front spindles. On the rear if you go to Cobra rotors (which are 11.65" dia) you can use stock calipers (with modification) but have to make adapter brackets to space the caliper out (away from center) and in towards car center because of the "hat" offset difference. I would not use Cobra rear rotors without upgrading the front to Cobra 13" rotors. If you use the 13" front rotors you will need to use Cobra calipers for that size rotor. Two reasons you need to change the spindles are: 1. calipers won't clear 89-92 spindles and 2. the caliper brackets mount differently. Do some searching, there is a lot of info available about this swap on this site with several different options. John
 
Again a question...

Well so if i understand correctly if i dont change the spindle i need to make a bracket to make the brake caliper work...ok so hypatheticly i am going to use stock tb rotors just re-drilled.. and my spindles will work with a bracket.. and the hubs will mout to the spindle? and with the brakes i can use the stock caliper and stock rotors just redrilled?
 
It is far cheaper to use Mustang rotors for the front than getting your Tbird rotors drilled.

Also I picked up a extra set of knuckles from a local pick n pull for $20 each. I had new bearings and cobra hubs pressed into those to avoid alot of down time.
 
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Well so if i understand correctly if i dont change the spindle i need to make a bracket to make the brake caliper work...ok so hypatheticly i am going to use stock tb rotors just re-drilled.. and my spindles will work with a bracket.. and the hubs will mout to the spindle? and with the brakes i can use the stock caliper and stock rotors just redrilled?

If you're going through the effort of doing a hub swap so you can have more readily available wheels...then you should also go ahead and upgrade to the '93+ (or Mark VIII) spindles. The biggest problem with the pre-'93 spindles is that you CANNOT install a larger rotor. No amount of caliper bracket modification will work because the spindle has caliper mounts that are over the rotor. I've been ready for this swap for some time now and hopefully will get it done this winter. I'm not going for the mustang hub swap, but the '93+ spindles with Mark VIII brakes for now.

Check the classified ads here...I believe Thomas A has a set or two for sale right now. I haven't checked the thread to see if they have sold yet, but the thread was active today. He's got it all for much less than I paid for mine, (which I thought was reasonable when I purchased the stuff).

My recommendation...upgrade the spindles when you do the hubs. If you don't you will never be able to upgrade your front brakes until you switch spindles. And I personally think the brakes were under-engineered on these very heavy cars as it is...
 
Well so if i understand correctly if i dont change the spindle i need to make a bracket to make the brake caliper work...ok so hypatheticly i am going to use stock tb rotors just re-drilled.. and my spindles will work with a bracket.. and the hubs will mout to the spindle? and with the brakes i can use the stock caliper and stock rotors just redrilled?

If you don't change the front spindles you are limited to stock rotors and calipers only. There is no bracket possible to use later calipers with 89-92 spindles.
A Mustang hub with bearing fits just fine on ANY front t-bird spindle so all you need to do is redrill the rotors to fit the mustang bolt pattern front and rear. You may have to turn the rear tbird center holes on the rotor also to fit the Mustang rear hub (not sure on that) because I know if you go the other way (Mustang rotors on tbird hubs) you need a center adapter ring to make the rotor hubcentric. John
 
If you don't change the front spindles you are limited to stock rotors and calipers only. There is no bracket possible to use later calipers with 89-92 spindles.
A Mustang hub with bearing fits just fine on ANY front t-bird spindle so all you need to do is redrill the rotors to fit the mustang bolt pattern front and rear. You may have to turn the rear tbird center holes on the rotor also to fit the Mustang rear hub (not sure on that) because I know if you go the other way (Mustang rotors on tbird hubs) you need a center adapter ring to make the rotor hubcentric. John


If you use Tbird rotors on the rear you need them drilled for Mustang pattern and have the centers bored to fit the Mustang hub as they are hubcentric.
 
when you get the rear rotors redrilled they also have to drill out each stud hole on the backside a little because the cobra studs have a little shoulder on them and it won't allow the rotor to sit flush on the hub without doing it.
 
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