WANTED 72 & 1/2 up disc brakes

[C Body Bob]

I have the calipers too

 

[MN72Fury]

I have a pair of 74 spindles & rotors for sale. From a C body Newport

Do you have a picture

 

[C Body Bob]

The 74 has a larger ball joint. In the hot rodding world that not a problem as a lot of guys with old cars adapt big car disc brakes over & use a bushing to get the hole closer to the tapered ball joint. These disc brake swaps are confusing. I see a lot of guys who end up with the wrong parts. And a lot who don't. Not sure on the brake line. The spindles I have are very good shape. Rotors are rusty. Came off an old junk car. They can be turned, but still may be too thin. Really won't know till you get them on a brake lathe. The 74 was the same till 76.

 

[twostick]

74 and newer spindles will only fit 74 and newer car. Calipers should work on earlier cars tho. Rotors are the same as 73.

If you have access to a lathe you could turn up a set of sleeves to drive onto the 69-early 72 spindle so that the 73 rotor and bearings will work. A GM 700R4 transmission front seal is the right dimensions to serve as a grease seal.

Dr Diff I think sells the inner spacer sleeve but I'm not sure if he does one for the outer bearing or perhaps there is an OOTB bearing set that will work for the outer.

Kevin

 

[Snotty]

That's the rotor we got. It's the later style. The rotor sits all the way down on the spindle, but you can't get the nut down far enough for the hole for the cotter pin to be exposed. And the inner wheel seal is a different diameter. They switched rotors midyear and rockauto doesn't even list it. The early style is a 2 piece rotor.

I ran into that same problem with the disk swap I did. I was able to find two '71 rotors - for a cost of $454.

 

[C Body Bob]

Here's what I have. All this came off a 74 Newport. I was wondering if this whole setup could be adapted to a early car that had the eccentrics on the upper arm. Fab machine a bar to replace the eccentric Cam's

 

[cantflip]

I have a couple pairs of Formal front spindles, but I believe they are worthless to the earlier cars. I won't throw them away anytime soon, but I don't see myself being in need of them either. I am holding onto the calipers as cores... I won't be too interested in selling or shipping, but if someone has a damaged one, let me know and I will work with you. If trying to convert something, buy Bob's complete setup.

 

[commando1]

. I was wondering if this whole setup could be adapted to a early car

No. Never in a million years.
I have seen this brought up many times.
One guy, a long time ago, showed on his website how he modified a 74+ spindle but it was terribly hacked and looked iffy.

 

[LocuMob]

No. Never in a million years.
I have seen this brought up many times.
One guy, a long time ago, showed on his website how he modified a 74+ spindle but it was terribly hacked and looked iffy.

Can the spindles work with a sleeve as mentioned previously? To work with the upper control arms?

 

[commando1]

Can the spindles work with a sleeve as mentioned previously? To work with the upper control arms?

If I remember all his modifications correctly , a sleeve won't do it.

 

[fury fan]

IMHO adding adapter sleeves to any bearing setup is an opportunity for trouble long-term. At a minimum, one should have good knowledge of the hardness ratings of components before proceeding. Generally, they need to be matched with one a little harder, one a little softer, so that they don't eat each other up during relative motion (and there will be ever-so-slight motion between spindle, sleeve and bearing race). This relative motion can lead to fretting wear, which causes extremely small particles to erode from 1/both surface when they are on the verge of transition from static friction to dynamic friction). This can lead to microcracks (visible only under a microscope), which reduce the material strength in an unpredictable manner. And you can imagine what happens if cracks start to propogate and connect to each other.

Fretting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I have seen the results of fretting wear in engine-cooling fans, and it's usually not very pretty. Especially for the surrounding components.

For the factory setup, there are 2 components involved, with a sleeve there are 3. So what would be the appropriate hardness for the sleeve? Who knows? I'm sure lots of shadetree machinists and businessmen/engineers can provide answers to such a question, and maybe they have had a few OEM spindles hardness-tested, but would they have any long-term data or specific experience to back up their designs???? Specifically related to our brakes??? How many miles of testing have they done vs the OEMs? My bet is the adapters were dimensionally designed, given a cursory installation review, and released for sale.

So for me, I'll never be going the adapter route.

 

[Wollfen]

View attachment 94939 Here's what I have. All this came off a 74 Newport. I was wondering if this whole setup could be adapted to a early car that had the eccentrics on the upper arm. Fab machine a bar to replace the eccentric Cam's

The problem with this setup is the lower ball joints, the 74 and up cars have the ball joint in the lower control arm that goes to the sub frame. The lower arm on the spindle here is not able to be changed out to an earlier ball joint/arm unit.

 

[LocuMob]

Well that sucks. Guess we'll have to stock up on spares from the yard we know has a couple of these cars.

 

[fury fan]

He's looking for the 73-style rotor, not the earlier one.
What's your price on a pair of the 69-72?

 

[pomonamissel]

got some bud disc rotors from a 68 fury and spindles and even calipers , have the set up from a 68 imp , and a 70 ny with pins , also the 75 imp four wheel disc set up , the lower ball joint / steering arms are different , no stud in it . and the mounting is different between them as well