Oh, the anticipation! The hubs are all ready to go, so I stripped down the driver side assembly down to the spindle and did a quick test fit of everything.


Volvo 1800 hub, separated from rotor, machined down slightly in outer diameter, new wheel studs welded in place, new races and bearings.



Rotor slipped on to hub.



Testing caliper clearance.

From the looks of it, I should be able to mount the calipers on the front and have them clear everything. This will be nice because it means I won't have to move the shocks around to the front.

I still need to make my caliper mounting brackets and a dust-shield/backing-plate. The backing plate will be very easy, and with luck the caliper mounting bracket shouldn't be too bad either.

The rotors and calipers were pulled from a 95-96 Nissan 240SX SE (5-lug). They are 252mm (~9 7/8") diameter and 20mm thick, ventilated rotors, and they fit cleanly inside the original 444 wheels. For reference, the 1800 rotors were 265mm (~10.5") diamter and 10mm thick, solid rotors. The old 1800 rotors probably had more bite due to their slightly larger diameter, but I'd say it's a safe bet that I won't be suffering brake fade from heat soaking. I'm hoping the sacrifice in diameter won't sacrifice braking leverage enough to be a concern.

The calipers appear to have roughly the same volume as the Volvo's current brake wheel cylinders. So hopefully, the swap will work out very neatly.