frozen brake drum

Not to hijack here but I am getting ready to tear my A-100 straight axle apart for the my 65 AWB car. Are the swedged studs something that was typically used and is this cutter something I need to purchase prior to disassembly? thx...
I want to stay drum brakes but was reading where the 10 x 2 1/2 drums used for a 65 Coronet spindle are also interchangeable with the A-100, and I don't recall having the swedged studs on the Coronet front drums.

65 drums should be swedged also. You can get the studs out without that cutter by drilling the heads out from the back. But even with good drills and a drill press this will take some time.

as was said previously by another member, "i don't want to be a butt ", well i don't want to be either. i'm just relaying what i have learned[mostly the hard way]from over 45 years of messing with this stuff. you guys need to re-look at the above pic mr. kunkle posted showing the swedge before & after. at the minium, you WILL make the drum hole larger pressing the stud out without getting rid of the swedge first. it will also leave a burr on the drum hole which ,unless removed,will not allow the drum to reseat on the hub correctly, causing wobble of the braking surface. swedging was used on almost all chrysler drums. in fact, on page #5-32 of the 1985 fsm for d&w 100-300 & ramcharger, in the front disc brake assembly, it clearly shows the swedging of the studs in a disc hub, and those are not 2 separate pieces. it looks like chrysler swedged most front drum/disc studs up untill late model disc/hub setups came into being.

Hi guys,

I wrote the Wiki article where John Kunkel got the pic of the hub above. The article was showing how to convert the rear brakes to slip on drums on pre-65 8 3/4" rears with tapered axles. Although I wrote this article about pre-65 tapered axle rear ends, this procedure for removing the studs should work on any swedged stud hub.

First, you need to cut the stud off flush with the outside of the drum. You can use a cut-off wheel for this or a hack saw; just make sure you have them flush with the drum surface. Then, center punch each one and drill a 3/16" - 1/4" hole in the center of each stud about a quarter inch deep. This will relieve the stress and allow the swedged area to curl in on itself when the stud is pressed out of the hub. You need to do this for all five studs. Then from this point, it is a simple procedure to press out the studs. With this done you now have the hubs and drums separated. Remember this procedure will basically ruin your drums so don't use it unless you plan to replace them.

I'm not sure post 64 Mopars used the same size stud, but if so the rest of this will apply. You now need to press in new studs. The stock lug bolts on these old Mopars are 1/2-20 UNF thread with a 0.622" knurl. The knurl is the ridged part of the stud that fits into the hub. In order to have a good tight press fit you need to make sure whatever stud you use has a knurl size of at least 0.622", but it can't be too large either. If it's too large, it will be difficult to press in and you stand a chance of damaging the hub. NAPA has studs that have a 0.623" knurl (part number BK 641-1128) and these work very well. Below is a picture of a set of my '64 Polara rear hubs with these non-swedged studs installed.

We had the cutter and the swedge tool at work before.Im just sorry I didnt get it when they closed the shops.Idiots even scraped 20 ton OTC presses that cost about 2K each in 86 and they were like new.Rocky

the popular knurl size is .622, but i have seen .643 used also. if you need to drill oversize because you gacked up the hub hole, remember, you need a .010-.015 press fit for the knurl splines[the od. of the splines being bigger than the hub hole]. i believe the dorman line lists studs by spline od. and length.