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Hope I'm not braking any rules on this one but wanted to get this out there and give a heads up somewhere.
I bought a 4 wheel disc conversion for my 67 from Classic Disc Brakes out of Texas (also does business as Superior Mustang Parts out of Colorado).
Talking on the phone everything seemed on the up and up but I had a complete nightmare with shipping and actually getting parts. I waited a couple weeks for the first boxes to arrive but quickly realized a lot of parts were missing. From there I went through about a month of "it shipped out yesterday" or "it will ship out tonight". It's one thing to have a delay but the constant lying about it.........
Everything did finally come but it's far from the "bolt on" kit he said it would be. Front wheel bearings were wrong, had to make and adapter for the front brake hoses and cut a notch in the fire wall for the brake booster. The rear rotors don't fit over the axle flange. Once that is resolved I can only hope the calipers fit!
In the end we'll make it all work but not through any of his help. The instructions he sent are just a couple pictures and if I call for help, "he'll get back to me". Yeah, still waiting for that one!
Worst part is the truck is at my dad's 300 miles away and I planned a couple weekends to go down with my 13 year old to work on it (he's already claimed the truck as his in 3 years!), only the parts weren't there. With the way time plays out now he wont be able to get his hands dirty on it before it's done.
The front disc components (from their website) looks like pieces parts from various automotive manufacturers. The booster looks like a Bendix unit for a '67-'70 Mustang.
Judging by the prices just for these items from them, you could have gotten a disc brake front suspension from a '75-'79 F100/F150 and a brake booster/mounting brackets from a '68-'72, rebuilt all of it and come out cheaper. It would have been Ford components engineered to fit without cutting/modifying anything and it would keep things simple when it's time to service or replace any of the items, being from one manufacturer --Ford.
Aftermarket bolt-on kits are enticing to people to just remove the front drums and slap the disc brake conversion components on and roll with it. The problem is most of these old trucks needs new I-beam bushings, radius arm bushings, kingpins, kingpin bushings and steering linkages. The brakes will only function as good as the foundation they're bolted to. If the foundation is worn out and sloppy, the brakes aren't going to work at their full potential.
If you're having to remove the front suspension to replace these parts, it just makes better sense to me to install a Dentside front disc/suspension.
I also noticed on the review of this vendor they get a 1-star rating.
He has a D or F on the BBB website but there were only a couple complaints and really the BBB is relatively meaningless. There are few if any reviews of "Classic Disc Brakes." I only found the other ratings once I found his personal name and was able to link it to "Superior Mustang Parts."
There were other ways of doing this conversion and I considered them all. My front end is otherwise pretty solid and I have more than enough projects going on, thus I took what may or may not have been the easy way out. Time will tell. Odds are this will be one of the last, if not the last, brake jobs this truck sees in my lifetime, and regardless I have the part #s for everything.
If the guy deals in early Mustang parts, that would explain the booster he's using as a conversion on an F100 --although, as you've found out, the stud mounting pattern doesn't match up to the existing pattern on your firewall.
That booster also has a very short input rod that's curved at the eyelet. This is to modify the pedal ratio when installed in an early Mustang. Early '67-'70 Mustangs had two different brake pedals; a shorter one for manual brakes and a longer pedal for power brakes. The longer power brake pedal mounted to a fulcrum point high up on the Mustang brake pedal support, compared to where the shorter manual brake pedal attached.
On a '67 F-series, the Mustang booster input rod may connect to the stock F-series brake pedal. On a '68-'72, it might fall a little short since the '67 pedal/pedal support is different from '68-'72. The fulcrum (pivot point) is closer to the front of the pedal hanger on a '67 F-series than on the '68-'72 models.
The picture is generic, not representative of the kit for the F100.
Whatever booster it was, the bolt pattern lined up but the angle somehow didn't work out for the rod without a little modification. Aside from the bearings I'll give him credit as the front seemed to go together well. With some more modification the back will work.
The biggest issue is the dozen lies concerning shipping and complete lack of support. I called him last night and again just now, leaving messages for him to call me back (pretty sure he has caller ID) that will never be returned.
He said the outer front bearings on a '67 differ vs a 68-71. Any idea if that's truly the case? In my search I've never seen that they differed but then most of what was referenced was only the king pin size.
That is what you will find in these trucks is the fact the early ones(like '67) don't always have the same parts as later models. Just like other things in the '67 that don't match 68-up.
Bill, does the front bearings match what was on the '66-earlier trucks? Were they 2" drums too?
I've seen this before where someone bought a kit to do a disc brake conversion and ended up with an expensive mess where if they had only known how simple it was to use existing OEM parts.
Many years back I put disc brakes on the front of my '64 Galaxie. '77 Tbird spindles/calipers bolt right on. Nothing expensive to buy or adapters to use.
12-11-2017, 10:46 PM
