Front hubs/brake drums

This may seem like a dumb question but are the front drums and hubs separate? On my Skylark the hubs and drums are one piece, looks like welded??? the reason I'm asking is I need to replace one or both front drums. Thanks

This is the rear axle but the drum fits over the hub the same way. Your hub is not welded to the hub. Heat it a little and TAP with a SOFT hammer. Some penetrating oil too.
VERY careful if you pry, you can crack break the cast iron drum.

So with the hub on the spindle the drum should come off by itself, funny how three out of four front drums seemed to be secured to the hubs.
So this is what should happen then, this is the only correct one?

Yep, that’s it. Hub is held on the spindle by the nut, the drum is held on the hub by the Wheel being bolted up to it with the lug nuts.

Do you know the difference between the front and back drums? I know they seem close but could one interchange them because my spare sets rear are like new while the fronts have grooves in the linnings.

Rear drums are slightly narrower shoe swept width. I am not sure but they may be same diameter.

I had my shoes relined.
Also, my 62 brakes were not self adjusting. I updated the rears to a 63 self adjusting set up, no big deal. I did a post on the Jetfires site.

Fronts with disc conversion from BCCP

I was going to do the disk brake conversion but was told it won't work with stock 15" rims so decided now to run the drums up front. Did you go with a 5 lug wheel?

No, should have but already had my 5 new 15”x6 4 lugs all painted up and ready to go, plus 5 lug would have meant rear axles too at around $800 bucks all done so I went with 4. Keeping this car on a budget, sorta. Bigger brakes on the 5 lug disc conversion but what I have is plenty anyway.

It's tough when all the parts are so hard to find, making us go in different directions than what we really want. Oh well keeps things interesting as long as the money doesn't run out.

Yeah and I’m retired so “time ain’t money when all you got is time.”

If you can’t fimd some good drums local go to DVAP. They will have them. Or try posting on oldsjetfire. Guys there or here on 6163 shaould gave some. I think my back ones were nice but at the limit in size. They just did a cleanup and put thicker linings on. Work great. Don’t forget to adjust your brakes out to slight drag before you bleed.

I too am retired but one needs to watch how much we spend on these obsessions, it can get away from one pretty quick. I'm thinking the drums are the same but still need to verify.

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Front and rear drums are different. As I remember the width of shoe swept area is different I believe. Pretty sure rears are skinner.

Well I got the drums separated from the hubs but not without a wack of work, was if they were welded on....they did eventually come apart. The press was working though and still needed to use heat once the studs were out. Going to oversize all the holes just a bit to get a easy slip on attachment, never want to go here again.

Probably just rusted drum to hub. Good cleaning and a little something to prevent the rust should do it without hole enlargement. You don’t want to go off center with drum.

What happened was the spline of the studs where into the drum metal, not much rust at all.

So the rear drums end up being about a 1/4" narrower than the front drums so there is definitely a difference which holds the drum away from the backing plate by the 1/4" but in a pinch I think they could work.

Up to you but I wouldn't mess with brakes like that. Plus you can get crap in there easy.
Someone either here or on the oldsjetfire forum should have some. Or DVAP in Arizona.
Also, I think the front drums cross over to other applications where the rears don't. Corvair maybe, and of course the Olds or Pontiac.

Yeah I was just checking into it for interest sake. If I have to change the drums I will go to a disk set up and to  new rims to accommodate them.
Just to clarify the swap one needs:
'65-'69 corvair hubs, bearings stay the same,
Scarebird disk brackets
'89 Mitsubishi Galant rotors,
'83-'90 S10 2wd calibers
14"-15" rims used on disk brakes
EDIT:
1" bore Master Cylinder for manual brakes

Or you go to BCCP, pay more money and do the 5 lug kit with the 1" alum MC. Pretty much turnkey, others here may be able to comment.
Scarebird specs a 7/8" ford fairmont which I have because BCCP had a MC that required cutting of strut... But now he has a compact 1" with the kit. The 7/8" works fine but has a lot of pedal travel and a Lowe pedal. I have manual brakes. If you do your own MC and have manual brakes make sure you get a MC designed for manual brakes. Difference is it has a deep pocket for the pushrod to sit it, power brake MCs do not and it can fall out!

Don't go with 14" wheels, VERY little decent tire choice and Radial T/As are expensive and not a very good tire. 15" have a good selection at a variety of prices.

Thanks made changes to list, just want to make sure this is a correct list in case someone else is looking into doing it.

I had my front hubs separated at a machine shop on my 63 skylark, just doing front wheel conversion to disc. I kept the 4 x4.5 hubs with 14in wheels. this is gary from az I'm new at this if you couldn,t guess.

If those 14” wheels aren’t designed for disc brakes they won’t fit over the calipers. Doubt any of the 4x4.5 wheels were set up that way but i could be wrong. See above posts.

they are aftermarket wheels from Discount Tire, I put a pict up but not sure where it went. they are 14''.