Tracy, I have a 54 F250 that I have done a bunch of upgrading and changes too. On the brakes, I replaced all the brake lines, wheel cylinders, pads, master cylinder etc. with new. My truck had a 4.86 rear end gearing and that was too slow for real driving on the road for me so I swapped in a 3.73 out of a '72 F250. It bolts right in, but required a new drive shaft. My truck has also been changed over to a 460 V8 with a auto transmission.

You wouldn't have to do all that, but I would recommend looking at upgrading the braking system to a dual master cylinder. That means you won't lose all brakes if the cylinder fails. It would require an adapter from a aftermarker source such as Midfifty to replace the original mastercylinder bracket and mastercylinder under the cab.

A good source of assistance for information on your truck is the '48-60 forum here at FTE. The folks there are real helpful and they would love to hear from someone that actually uses an older F250 for real work and not as a toy.

Pop me a pm if you have any questions and good luck. I usually hang out at the Kansas Chapter site, but saw the 55 F250 thread and couldn't resist stopping by.