big bolt pattern

Au contraire. The F/M/J spindles are a perfectly viable option to convert A bodies with. You still need the big ball joint upper control arms from a late A body in order to use them.

Disk Brake Conversion Info

Spindle Comparison

Exactly!

On an FMJ car you can pull the spindles and everything out from there and use that as a BBP disk conversion. In fact I’ve done exactly that on my Duster, although I’ve upgraded brakes again since then.

The later B/R body brakes can also be used with the 73+ spindles, and you can get 11.75” disks from those.

All of that’s covered in the articles @Professor Fate posted.

You can also use C body and (some) truck 8 3/4 axles and have them cut down and re-splined for A-body 8 3/4 use. Although DoctorDiff axles work better for that and aren’t so much more expensive when you consider shipping axles to Moser or something like that.

Rear drums/backing plates etc can come off of any BBP RWD car, some of that stuff carried over until ‘89 IIRC.