Hi, I've got a 1959 Pontiac Catalina with the 14" factory rims, hubcaps, and manual drum brakes. I would love to find better brakes for it. But it looks like every disc brake conversion kit requires 1 5" rims, which I really don't want to lose my factory appearance. So far I've ran across the following options 1) Master Power Brakes- Power booster conversion kit 2) Scarebird Classic Brakes- Front disc wheel kit for 14" or bigger, dodge sprinter rotors and GTO calipers or 3) buying a 1 5" disc brake conversion kit, rims and tires $ $$. Wondering if the power booster would work and help enough for this big tank, seems like the easiest first option. Has anyone brought/used Scarebird brakes. The reviews I've seen are hit and miss depending on the make/model. Don't want anything I can't trust 100%. Any thoughts inputs would help. Thanks!
In the spring I bought a 63 merc convertible the previous owner installed a power master cylinder on the stock drum brakes. It was out of a Chevy something I put all new brakes and hardware Had the drums turned and this thing stops on a dime. If your doing a lot of city or hilly drives discs may be necessary, but I’m more then happy with this set up
Pontiac 8 lug drums and wheels were used from 1960 through 1968, although there were some differences over the years. They are 14". If you have the right parts they can be retrofitted to 1959 cars, but they're harder to find these days and usually aren't cheap if you can. They do a better job at heat dissipation than the stock drums, but in normal day to day driving I don't think you'll see any performance advantage (and I've been using them for 30+ years on various cars.) They are great looking, though. There's a good article about them on Fred Teufert's Pontiac page, it's from an old issue of the Pontiac club Smoke Signals magazine but is still relevant. http://www.teufert.net/pontiac/8lug/8lug.htm Scarebird's stuff is generally well regarded and I believe he posts here from time to time, I'd say it's your best bet for a brake upgrade at a reasonable price.
Ok. Thanks for the info on the 8 lug rims. I’ll definitely have to read that article from smoke signals. Looks like it has a lot of valuable info. Yeah I’ll have to look into the scarebird items a little more and see what’s involved. Thanks for the review on them.
I saw an article somewhere a lot of years back on making drums more efficient. Drilling the drums was one of the tricks. Anyone else remember this? I also had 14" wheels with factory disc brakes on an O/T 1981 El Camino, both factory ralleys for that year, and 5 spoke Torque Thrust or copies
59 Pontiacs have eccentric brake shoe anchor pins. Adjusting them correctly makes differenge in stopping power.
Ok. I’ll have to check into that. We’ve decided to purchase the power booster conversion kit to try out first. It’s supposed to be here Monday so I’ll hopefully get it done next weekend. I’ll post an update after I try it out.
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