Hello, I have a 1949 Dodge D-30 woody station wagon, wanted to put disc brake conversion on front, but discovered my bolt pattern was 5 1/2 not standard 4 1/2 , so there were no kits available to my knowledge, decided to change out spindles, trunion , upper and lower control arms to facilitate a 10 inch drum disc brake conversion, my question is, am i compromising the front end by going with the lighter components , was it made beefier because of the longer wheelbase , or was it a case of over engineering ? any imput would be appreciated gill
you are correct. cars are always over built. but if you notice how many thousands of customs and hot rods use mustang ii front ends or brake kits because they are small and light.
Other cars using the 5 1/2" wheel bolt pattern at the time were Imperial cars, Dodge DeSoto and Chrysler 8 passenger sedans and limos, and station wagons. So quite a few cars were made with that suspension. This was a heavy duty suspension they used in heavier cars, and those that were made to carry large loads of passengers and baggage.
Try rims from a 1976 Bronco. That's what AAJ [email protected] uses in there kit #227. Phone Phone # (503 - ) 890-1469.
WAIT!! We couldn't find any '76 Bronco rims in this area. We ended up using the rim centers with wider hoops (rims). My Windsor is a 7 passenger sedan so it the larger frame, suspension brakes and that kind of stuff. So I guess I don't really know if Bronco rims would work. Good luck.
You're good to go with the swap, even the base cars had battleship front suspensions , may want to relocate shock upper mounts to the frame...inspect all parts of course...
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