A Body Disc Brake Swap 101

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7071DartGTReg said:
OK.... That wasn't so bad was it? Do yourself a favor and buy some "Special Tools" before you start on this project: A Flare/Line Wrench Set and A Pickle Fork. This will save you from destroying your Brake Lines and ease the removal of the Tie Rod Ends and The Lower Ball Joints.

Later,
Bruce B.
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Buy a good set set of flare/line wrenches (Mac, Snap-on etc.) the cheap sets have to much flex and still round the fittings off.
 
7071DartGTReg said:
Well....
Everything went fairley good....Except:
The Upper Ball Joint on the Drivers side fought back bad!
What you DON'T see is the 7 foot Steel Pipe on the end of the 3/4 Drive Breaker Bar!
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My friend George (now FABO Member 318dart) stopped by to wrench!! THANK-YOU George!! :supz:
Passenger Side re-assembly.....
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Spindle......
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Removing old Upper Ball Joint......
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Out with the old....
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Passenger side pretty much done......
NOTE: The Lower Ball Joint Bolts are on BACKWARDS!!! We noticed and corrected this of course! LOL
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Passenger side waiting on Caliper, Rotor, and Pads.....
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Now the Drivers side.... (See 1st pic for Upper Ball Joint removal....UGH)......
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Passenger Side..... DONE!
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Drivers Side..... DONE!
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See http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=43550
For the pics of the Magnum 500's going on.

This is how it is done.....
Nothing to it!
AND: The Disc Setup clears the Sway Bar with the Sway Bar Mounts I Made.
(see: http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=43550&page=2
Post # Twenty-Eight)

Later,
Bruce B.
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I got to this post on this thread and I stopped. This car will never steer with the calipers on the front with a 72 and older stabilizer bar. The caliper will hit the bar. When ever you do one of these swaps rule of thum is 72 and older calipers go to the rear with the use of a Volari Aspen Brake hoses. Good luck guys looks like you all are having another fun day. I vote no help at all. Steve
 
dgc333 said:
One more thing to take from the doner car is the master cylinder.

Also, I don't recomend that the master cylinder, or calipers be used but they are good to use as cores when getting rebuilt parts.

Unless the rotors are very good I would recomend new ones, they are relatively cheap. I got Canadian made rotors for about $45 each.

Another item that should be new are the wheel bearings. They are about $5 each and $3 for the dust seal.

One more item; if you happen to have new lower ball joints on the car already they can be reused. You will need to drill out the mounting holes to accept the larger spindle mounting bolts of the disk brake setup.
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NO, they can't. You can drill them out if you are feeling adventurist, but it's not a good idea as there is not much material left on them to hold the bolts. Did it today on my 66. luckily Carquest had a set of lower ball joints for a 74 scamp in stock and I was able to get them on and works fine.

Blownfish said:
Great thread. This swap works on the early A's as well, just use the early center link, pitman arm, idler arm and inner tie rod ends and then the same 73 up parts used in this thread.

I know some had said you can use your stock outer tie rod ends but that is not the case on the earlier A's they need to match the lower ball joint/steer arm.
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yes you can actually if you use the bbp large spindles. same story as above, just put the scamp lower ball joint on and it went right in.

dgc333 said:
The 73+ disks had the caliper to the front. I have heard that with it mounted to the front on a 72 down car with a factory sway bar the caliper can it the sway bar at full lock. If you swap sides with the spindle so you can mount the caliper to the back you need to swap calipers side to side too or the bleeder winds up being lower than the hose and causes all kinds of bleeding issues.
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yep, true. You also can't use the stock brake hoses as they aren't long enough.

There are a couple misconceptions that must be cleared up.

First, the lower ball joints unless you don't mind drilling them out will NOT fit the larger spindles if you are going from 9 in drum brakes. You have to get the lbj from the 73 and up cars. Also, the dust seals that you get will not fit. you can try but if they are anything like mine were, the seals fit fine on the spindle but wobbled around inside the caliper and would have allowed dust to get in there eventually. the part number for the seals that you'll get from an auto parts store is 6815. What you need is the seal part number CR (chicago Rawhide) 19226. It doesn't look like the original seal, but fits right on the spindle and tight in the rotor. Other than that, this thread helped a lot. Belated thanks Bruce.
 
The dust seals I used when I did the swap were Timken brand and were identical to the ones that were in the old rotors and fit the new rotors and the doner spindles fine.
 
I copied this post and added it here so it will be easily found when others ask the same information.

72bluNblu said:
You will need the upper control arms, the kelsey hayes disks used the small upper ball joint. The prop valve should be the same, I wouldn't worry about that because you're already disk/drum.

You can get some sleeves for the small ball joints to use them with the later spindles, Dr. Diff sells them for $50 HERE. Otherwise you'll need the big ball joint uppers.

Don't know about a kit, but you can pull everything you need except the upper control arms off of any F/M or J body, so you should be able to get what you need at the local wrecking yard.

And I would think you can sell your Kelsey Hayes set up for a pretty penny!

EDIT:


Here's a list of all the Mopars that use the same 10.98" rotor. You can also pull spindles and calipers off of any of these cars. Some will have pin type calipers, but if you grab everything from the spindle out you'll get the right caliper brackets. Some of them also had the 11.75" rotors from '76 to '81.

CHRYSLER CORDOBA (1975 - 1983)
CHRYSLER FIFTH AVENUE (1983 - 1989)
CHRYSLER IMPERIAL (1981 - 1983)
CHRYSLER LEBARON (1977 - 1981)
CHRYSLER NEW YORKER 1982
CHRYSLER TOWN & COUNTRY (1978 - 1981)
DODGE ASPEN (1976 - 1980)
DODGE CHALLENGER (1973 - 1974)
DODGE CHARGER (1973 - 1976)
DODGE CORONET (1973 - 1975)
DODGE DART (1973 - 1976)
DODGE DIPLOMAT (1977 - 1989)
DODGE MIRADA (1980 - 1983)
PLYMOUTH BARRACUDA (1973 - 1974)
PLYMOUTH CARAVELLE (1978 - 1985)
PLYMOUTH CUDA (1973 - 1974)
PLYMOUTH DUSTER (1973 - 1976)
PLYMOUTH FURY 1975
PLYMOUTH GRAN FURY (1982 - 1989)
PLYMOUTH SATELLITE (1973 - 1974)
PLYMOUTH SCAMP (1973 - 1976)
PLYMOUTH VALIANT (1973 - 1976)
PLYMOUTH VOLARE (1976 - 1980)
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Ya know I re read this over again and it had me starting to cry,loosing a great teacher and member,sometimes this world sucks,thanks Bruce,we still think of ya.:burnout:
 
:blob:Just finnished my swap. I got the UCA and Spindals from Steves Musslecar parts.He is a FABO member. They came off a 73 dart I left the calipers up front, my feeling is better cooling and less road dirt slinging on to them. I did replace all front end parts. a little sandblasting and some paint and waalaa!... but Ive had this car apart for 15 years so It wasnt that easy I put this togeather 4 times befor I had it right... good thread...
 

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every time this thread pops up...

I miss you Bruce. Somewhere in heaven, you are beating Hemi Cudas in your GT.
 
kbsouers said:
:blob:Just finnished my swap. I got the UCA and Spindals from Steves Musslecar parts.He is a FABO member. They came off a 73 dart I left the calipers up front, my feeling is better cooling and less road dirt slinging on to them. I did replace all front end parts. a little sandblasting and some paint and waalaa!... but Ive had this car apart for 15 years so It wasnt that easy I put this togeather 4 times befor I had it right... good thread...
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Why does that not look right to me ? Wasn't the sway bars end link on the top ? Isn't this the reason the calipers had to be moved to the rear ?
I suppose it doesn't make much difference if it works.
 
Very helpful, thanks. I think I will be trying this in the near future and I am sure I will be referring back.
 
Was rummaging through photos and ran across a photo of what to get from search salvage yards for BBP disk brakes.

Not shown: Master cylinder & proportioning valve
 

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Bruce (RIP) would be very happy to see his thread still goin strong.
 
So I'm a little confused and I apologize in advance for my lack of experience on this subject. I completely understand the various ways to convert drum-to-disc,parts that will work and won't work, etc, but what if someone is converting SBP drum to LBP disc in the front...what happens with the rear drums? I haven't read anything regarding the swap from SBP to LBP out back.???....or have I totally missed something!! :dontknow:
 
Drum brakes are what they are. The bolt pattern difference from front to rear that is created here isn't addressed in this thread because its a totally different issue.
There is a wide variety of solutions. Some run adapters. Some change the entire rear axle assembly.
 
so if you had factory discs sbp would you bother to upgrade or stick with them .also does any one know if you can just change the rotor to get bbp .
 
dvav said:
so if you had factory discs sbp would you bother to upgrade or stick with them .also does any one know if you can just change the rotor to get bbp .
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I personally don't like fixed multi piston calipers but... If I owned them I wouldn't spend to replace them. Very similar brakes were used on early Mustangs which did have the 5 on 4.5 bolt pattern. There are differences in bearings, etc.. to address. It has been done though.
 
herekdkd said:
So I'm a little confused and I apologize in advance for my lack of experience on this subject. I completely understand the various ways to convert drum-to-disc,parts that will work and won't work, etc, but what if someone is converting SBP drum to LBP disc in the front...what happens with the rear drums? I haven't read anything regarding the swap from SBP to LBP out back.???....or have I totally missed something!! :dontknow:
Click to expand...


I solved the problem by getting a dual bolt pattern spare rim!!! I used '73 charger front disc brakes and believe me I could disconnect the rear drums and still stop on a dime. In all honesty, I installed Chevy 10 bolt rear because the larger a-body Mopar rear ends are very hard to get around here and when you do find one it cost a small fortune. So don't beat me up for using a good HD rear end I had laying around in my garage. After installing the BBP discs up front and the Chevy rear I bought a dual bolt pattern steel rim for a spare 5 X 4 1/2 by 5 X 4 3/4. It works great and I can stop like sports car.

treblig
 
Hi guys , just a little FYI here , i have done at least a dozen of these swaps on A bodys from 67 to 72 and i have never once changed the proportioning valve, the cars stop fine and had no issues what so ever , the master cylinder also works good too , however if you use a master cylinder from a dodge truck with power bakes you get a really nice pedal feel and effortless brakeing . ( I also do not do these with power barkes )
 
Muad'Dib15 said:
First, the lower ball joints unless you don't mind drilling them out will NOT fit the larger spindles if you are going from 9 in drum brakes. You have to get the lbj from the 73 and up cars.
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What does this mean? I don't understand how the spindle mounts to a ball joint????
 
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