I have to replace a brake drum on the left front wheel of my '66 F100. I found a replacement on a unibody F100 that seems to fit, but it doesn't look the same. On the '66 the drum and wheel hub assembly are two seperate parts, on the older one it is all on piece. My question is this- Are they interchangeable?

 

Ah, been there and done that. Actually, the one piece hub and drum assembly is two pieces. It does separate if you wack the studs really hard to separate the two pieces. Now this is where things get tricky. Both hubs styles will work on your truck, but............

1) You will notice the studs are different for the seemingly one piece assembly vs. your '66 assembly and that is why one is pressed on. The '66 studs have a longer shoulder on them to help center the drum in place and the earlier studs do not which means pressing them on.
2) The center section of the '66 hub and the earlier hub are of two different sizes by about 3/16" give or take. That means the '66 drum does not fit an earlier hub and the earlier drum does not fit the '66 hub.

I went through all this when trying to replace my damaged drums on my '65. Couldn't find decent drums cost wise for the type of hub I had. Went to a pick n pull and found good drums from a '65 donor. Also brought back a spare hub to have. Was going to use the '66 style until I found the '65 drums would fit the hub I brought back. Lo and behold I saw the difference via a caliper. Long story short I have a good set of '65 hubs and drums on my truck and a good spare set of '66 hubs with new races, bearings and correct studs under the workbench for the future. Getting drums to fit the '66 style is much easier than the earlier style.

 

When you replace the drum, you'll need to have new studs pressed into the hub to reassemble the hub to the drum. The brake drums should interchange between 1957/67 F100's. All the seals and bearings are identical. The same brake size (11 x 2) was used from 1957/67 on all F100 2WD's..

 

Thanks, Bill. Glad to know I have what I need. My local junkyard is too scary to visit more than once a year!

 

Should might be the key word here. On my bench are sitting two 66 hubs and none of the earlier drums will slip on. The center section bearing section is 3.5" in diameter at the base while it is 3.25" on my 65 hubs. Naturally the 65 drums will not lay flat on the 66 hubs because of that 0.25" difference. Drums for the 66 are easy to come by and reasonable in cost but not so for the earlier style. By the time we could find one that matched the 65 hub the drum was $100 a piece. Big part because I wouldn't accept made in China parts so this drum was made in Canada. Come to think of it I do have new 66 drums under the bench and even those were different from the earlier drums in center section as above and the diameter of the stud holes. Agree that that the seals and bearings are identical as I did both sets. Too bad the site program doesn't allow direct attachments so I could post photos with the post itself. That is a great thing on my Mercury Cougar website.

 

I should have added: There were 5 different front drums used from 1957 through 1967. The early type will not work on the 1963 and later models. Ford replaced the 1963 drums with the 64 drums, then replaced the 64 drums in 1965 with a hub and drum assembly, and when Ford did this, they no longer supplied the drums only...one had to buy the entire assembled hub and drum. In 1966 they changed the 1965 hub and drum to the last type (C6TZ-1102-A) which was also used in 1967.

 

OK, final question. The hub on my '66 was bad, too (long story). Would the '61 hub and drum work on a '66?

 

No, it has to be from a 1965/67 F100 2WD with 11 x 2 front brakes.

 

That clears things up some. When I went out to the garage I found that I have an extra 5 hubs and 3 drums not counting the ones on the truck now. Three hubs have the larger diameter center and two have the smaller diameter. One drum has the large center opening and 5 smaller stud holes. The other two drums have the smaller center with 10 holes for studs. Five larger than the other set and these drums are new. They won't fit the first 3 hubs at all but fit the other 2 hubs.

 

Thanks guys for the info. Back to the ol' drawing board!