Trucks have always been good for haulin' stuff around for us at our every whim and are still regrettably there for us when the inevitable friend needs help moving. Having owned half a dozen classic trucks of all makes and using some of them for several out-of-state moves of my own, I can safely say that the least impressive thing about all of them has been their lackluster stock brakes. Just when you think you got everything packed in there perfectly and couldn't be any smarter, you get to the bottom of the hill and start stompin' and sweatin'.
Luckily, I have lived to tell this tale, but let's try to avoid the situation all together which is easy to do today with all the bolt-on upgrade kits available from the ever-growing aftermarket. Rabb Sabin of Orange, California, shares my pain with his '72 F100. He got in touch with the folks over at Blue Oval Truck Parts and they sorted him out with Master Power Brakes' '65-72 Ford truck power disc brake kit to replace the stock drums up front. This is a complete bolt-on kit that includes almost everything you need except brake fluid and fits on the stock parts of your truck easily. All of the following can be done in the driveway on a Saturday.
Follow along and see what it takes, and then call or click both of these companies for all your truck's needs.
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The whole shebang! Master Power Brake's upgrade kit is quite impressive and includes the new power brake booster, disc/drum master cylinder, combination/proportioning valve, spindles with single piston calipers already installed, and 12-inch American-Made rotors with seals, bearings, and dust caps. Also included is a new kingpin set with new bearings and bushings. |
Before we got carried away with the install, we checked that the new brakes would fit behind the 15-inch Cragars that were on the truck; this is an important thing to consider with many brake upgrades. Luckily everything cleared. |
With the wheels off, we find relatively small stock drum brakes up front, which were fine back in the early '70s. But wouldn't it be nice to stop with the rest of us on the road today? Once the drum is off, just continue the teardown... |
...Disconnect the brake hoses and remove the four bolts that mount the backing plate to the spindle. Fortunately, someone did a fair job of maintaining this truck, making the job a lot easier. |
You'll need to get out the tie-rod separator/pickle fork to break the steering arms loose from the tie-rod ends. |
Before getting the bigger hammer to continue driving the kingpins out, make sure you remove the tapered stop that locates the kingpin. |
Here's a look at the new kingpins laid out and ready with the new nylon bushings, bearings, shims, threaded caps, grease zerks, and the tapered stop. |
Install the new bushings into the new spindles. Grease the kingpin bore in the axle as well as the kingpins. You can slide the kingpin up from the bottom of the spindle enough so that the bearing will sit on it and lift the whole assembly up into place, pushing the kingpin up the rest of the way to hold everything. Use the shims to take up any extra play if needed. Once it is deemed good than install the stop and threaded caps with zerks. Now would be a good time to hook up the new brake hoses, too. |
Once the spindle/kingpin task is complete, so is the disc brake installation! Thanks to Master Power, the unit comes pre-assembled, which means no packing bearings with grease, installing races, etc. From here, attention immediately moved to the engine compartment. |
Outta here! Here's the stock master and booster before it's yanked. Unhook the brake lines and unbolt the master cylinder and then the booster. |
With both boosters on the bench, measure the original pushrod and adjust the new one to this length for reference before installing. |
When you get the booster in place, insert the new plunger with the flared side going into the booster. |
Don't force it! Make sure when the new master cylinder gets into place that the plunger seats into the middle of the piston in the master. |
This new combination valve is needed when adding disc brakes to a drum/drum system. This will work with the new master cylinder to get and keep the right brake pressure to all four wheels. The stock pressure safety switch was mounted down off the frame and will no longer be needed; use the fittings supplied to eliminate it. If you want, you can reuse the stock hard line coming up from this point; you will just need to tweak it a little. |
With all the new Master Power parts installed, here's how it looks. The U-shaped hard lines from the master cylinder to the combination valve are also included and come pre-bent. All that's left now is to bleed the system and road-test everything. |