Hey guys! Here's the deal, I have a 62 bel air that a few years ago I converted the front brakes to GM "metric" style disk brakes. Well now I have a set of 14" chrome reverse wheels and bias plys for the front that REALY look cool on the car. Trouble is the wheels hit the calipers BAD. More than a little grinding could fix. Sooooo..... would i be dumb to put drum brakes back on??? If I compleatly rebuild them they should be fine, right?
I guess it depends or your use. But, if you were gonna be road racing I doubt that you would be putting bias tires on your ride. So, go for it, I think you'll be fine. Poor people have poor ways.
what about grind and a 1/4'' spacer???? what size disk are you using ??? ive put many 14inch rev,standerd wire wheels on many cars and had very little isusses like you are talking about but if its 13inch thats differnt story just my .2 cents
If I remember right they are 10.5" standard GM metric rotors. I just loosely mounted up one wheel to see what it would look like. The caliper hit so bad that I could just barely start the lug nuts and the wheel was on cock eyed.
thats a stupid move! disc brakes stop better, and thats a big car with some lbs. behind it! how bad does it scrape?? i ground mine down and now it works! and yea spacers would be a good choice to help, but its really up to you? with that car being so heavy i would stick to disc!
all the kits say 15" wheels needed, if i were closer i would trade you for the drum stuff on my girls '61 bel air. drums are fine, have them on 3 cars (2 daily drivers in so cal traffic)...just keep them is good working order and don't tailgate.
I agree with big creep. but, if you do change back spend the extra bucks and use all new quality parts
yea im sure they do, my car had drums, they would get hot in traffic and they they would suck big time i switched to disks! wow what a difference. hey if the drums work do it, but i think he can find a better fix then switching back. disk are better, but if you want to stay true to what your car came with by all means change it back, but make sure everything is in perfect working order.
stockton wheel sells a 14 steal wheel that will clear the caliper i bought some when i put disc on my 65 impala and wanted to run hub caps and not run 15s
Hi If the above wheels will work maybe that is the way to go if they don't stick the wheels out too far and look funny, I don't know. Or ABS in Orange has a smaller caliper that will fit your old stock drum wheels. You can try those. If it does not stop well enough with the smaller calipes, then just put in a smaller bore master cyl. and or a bigger booster. Tell Lucio Sakowski sent you! Call him, he can help. Wil
Not true. Our stuff was designed to clear the OEM 14" drum rim - and if you are using the 1978 G body rotor you can reuse it.
Before you do anything stack 1/4 inch of flat washers on each stud and see how the wheel fits on. I think I had to use 3/8 spacers when I ran the 14 inch drum style wheels on my 48 and had the 72 Monte Carlo disks on it. I think I did have to do a tad bit of grinding on the caliper too though.
x2 on these guys! i was there last weekend! check them out! http://www.abspowerbrake.com/maincatalog_frameset.html
I cannot remain silent on this anymore. In the disc brake biz there is quite a bit of copying and such - but ABS is the bottom of the barrel. Note the first pic - this is the setup Sakowski and Bigcreep recommend. Observe how the bracket is bolted to the spindle with only 2 attachment points; they completely ignore the upper boss where Chevrolet engineered the thrust to be taken - they also do this on the GM intermediates. Note the red arrow, see how the lower caliper mount is just hanging there cantilevered out? Piss poor engineering. I show you our design. We use the same components; 78 Malibu rotors with 1990 Celebrity calipers. Note how we attach to the upper spindle boss solidly with a machined and welded spacer in the first pic - and the third pic of a customers car we revised the design to use a formed and fixture welded piece with a simple hex bolt. And also note the lower is far more rigid, not hanging in space.
so my shoebox is now a street rod cause i put disc brakes on it?, nope it just stops better! than a car with front drums.
mine are mounted on the stock kingpin spindle, haven't had a problem yet. its been about 7 years. but i understand your concern on piss poor designs. im not an engineer, but i wish you guys would speak up on who make better parts then keeping quiet. i don't mind spending more for quality.
Understood. But quite a few people think a nice thick 4-color catalog walk hand-in-hand with adequate engineering...
hey scaredbird aren't 90% of disc now made in china and india?? ive even heard brembo are being made in china now, i know its cause of cost but what happened to making them here, well not the brembo brand but i remember not that long ago i could get american made rotors.
I do not know if Brembo are, but most are indeed made in China from Aussie ore We've run into some made in Colombia too... NAPA still has a few from Canada
Thank f'ing god we have posts like this, GO for it, Power drums will stop as good as any disk, just typically more petal travel, and best of all they wont get your chrome wheels as dirty as fast. As a young crazy SOB that has been known to beat vintage tin within a inch of it's life on curvy backroads, there is certainly more brake fade if you are RACING, but i'm rough with my toys. I never had a problem with my manual drum '64 el camino, and that thing had been thrown through some serious hoops
i dont see what you have for shoeboxes on you page Mr. bird i want to see your kit, i was wondering how your set up is? in case mine takes a shit i have a back up plan, you know?
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