Disc Brake Upgrade Reference Thread

[rudy350]

Sorry if u have to tilt to see it lol
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[Captainfab]

OK, so it's your spring hangers that are rusted, and not the spring perches, like I thought you were talking about. Is it just that one hole, or are they basically completely rusted? If it's just that one hole, that should be able to be welded. If they are completely rusted, you will need to replace them with good used originals. I'm not sure just what all years will interchange. You might try looking in the 60-66 classifieds here on the forum. If you want to post a WTB, you will have to become a suporting member to do that.

[rudy350]

Oh ok thanks captain ..
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[rudy350]

Theyre completly rusted who might sale them,? Whats a wtb? Sorry,im new
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[LostMy65]

Originally Posted by rudy350

Theyre completly rusted who might sale them,? Whats a wtb? Sorry,im new
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You sign up here to be a supporting member.
You then get a title under your username that says Premium Member.
Then you are allowed to post in the Market Place section of the forum.
Then you start a WTB Thread.
WTB means Want To Buy.
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[Captainfab]

If you can't find some originals to replace those, you might consider using the ones from the '77 donor truck. You might have to change both front and rear hangers along with the springs. I can't say for sure, but it is an option for you. You will just have to make some comparisons between the 2 types and see exactly what would have to be done.

[CRGRS 66]

Subscribing, need to go back to page one, and read through...
great thread, thanks for all the effort

[Bkndsdl]

Guys, I did some writeups on my original website about how I did my swap. I used a '75 truck as a donor. I bolted the crossmember up and washed all the brackets off the '64 rear and welded them on the '75 rear. Here is the link:

http://home.mchsi.com/~bkndsdl1/front_end_page_1.htm

Hope this helps!

[CRGRS 66]

Just spent the last couple hours going through this thread from the beginning, and copying everything relevant to me into a word doc for future reference.

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed questions and answers to this thread. I have been schooled in 66 C10 front suspension

[mike14_07]

so i have a 66, i have an ece 4/6 drop spindles and all. can i get the control arms off a 73-87 and bolt right up to my suspension amd use balljoints for a 66? will steering still be the same for 66?

[Captainfab]

I am not familar with what ECE offers in dropped spindles. You need to contact them to find out what ball joints and tie rods to use with the particular spindles you have. Then you will be able to determine if you can use the '7-'87 lower control arms, and if the '66 tierods will work.

Originally Posted by mike14_07

so i have a 66, i have an ece 4/6 drop spindles and all. can i get the control arms off a 73-87 and bolt right up to my suspension amd use balljoints for a 66? will steering still be the same for 66?

[TJG-1]

New member here, spent sometime reading thru this thread and all i can say is wow. Nice work! Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

[Darkrider]

Originally Posted by Captainfab

You will need spindles for the 1-1/4" rotors.

As far as I know the C30 lower control arms should work. If you want to verify before purchasing the control arms, go to the parts store and compare the '88-'98 lower ball joints with the C30 lower ball joints. See of the part that presses into the control arm is the same.

When you determine if they will work or not, please post back here so the rest of us will know. Thanks

Its been awhile since i have been on here. However i have found out the following by doing a search on Rockauto as well as the MOOG website. The 71-87 C20 models and C30 models use the same upper and lower ball joints. As i mentioned before i know where i can get my hands on basically a complete C30 dually donor truck. So im going to wind up going one of two ways. Either pull the entire front suspension and rear diff from the C30 and make my truck into a C30 or pull the entire front end from the C30 and the front end of my C10 and do a full a cross member swap with the 2500LD spindles and rotors. Unless i can pull just the Upper and lower control arms from the C30 and bolt them to my C10s existing front end. But to be honest i would rather pull the entire crossmember assembly since that will also give me the proper engine mounting points for the 6.2 Diesel. Unless of course the mount points are the same between cross members.

[markeb01]

Welcome to the forum!

Originally Posted by TJG-1

New member here, spent sometime reading thru this thread and all i can say is wow. Nice work! Thanks for taking the time to put this together.

[Captainfab]

You can install the C30 control arms onto your C10 crossmember. But if you are going to be changing engines anyway, it may be a little less work to just change the entire front suspension. Although I believe the holes in the crossmember for the motor mounts are the same.

Originally Posted by Darkrider

Its been awhile since i have been on here. However i have found out the following by doing a search on Rockauto as well as the MOOG website. The 71-87 C20 models and C30 models use the same upper and lower ball joints. As i mentioned before i know where i can get my hands on basically a complete C30 dually donor truck. So im going to wind up going one of two ways. Either pull the entire front suspension and rear diff from the C30 and make my truck into a C30 or pull the entire front end from the C30 and the front end of my C10 and do a full a cross member swap with the 2500LD spindles and rotors. Unless i can pull just the Upper and lower control arms from the C30 and bolt them to my C10s existing front end. But to be honest i would rather pull the entire crossmember assembly since that will also give me the proper engine mounting points for the 6.2 Diesel. Unless of course the mount points are the same between cross members.

[Darkrider]

Originally Posted by Captainfab

You can install the C30 control arms onto your C10 crossmember. But if you are going to be changing engines anyway, it may be a little less work to just change the entire front suspension. Although I believe the holes in the crossmember for the motor mounts are the same.

Good to know. I cant really see why GM would have changed things much if at all when it comes to the engine mounting. There was a member on here who put a 6.2 Diesel in his 1 ton that was an I6. I think he had to do some searching to figure out what mounts worked but thats about it. I may go hunting in the yards to see if i can find any other C20/C30s to pull arms from since the Donor i mentioned is a lil more complete then i would want to break down into a donor. It was a guys resto project.

[Snowbound]

Are '71-72 C20 spindles the same as C10 for the same years? There is one at the Pick in Pull I might grab if they will work on my '65 C10.

If they will work, I'll just buy new rotors and calipers, etc.
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[Captainfab]

No, the C20 spindles are different.

You do not have to use '71-'72 spindles to put disc brakes on the front of your '65. The '73-'87 spindles and all front suspension parts will work just as well and are much easier to find. That is all I have ever used to convert to front discs.

Originally Posted by Snowbound

Are '71-72 C20 spindles the same as C10 for the same years? There is one at the Pick in Pull I might grab if they will work on my '65 C10.

If they will work, I'll just buy new rotors and calipers, etc.
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[Snowbound]

Ya, I've done the swap on my old '68. Not sure why I thought the '71-72 spindles would be better.

Half price this weekend, so I'll probably go get what I need.

Thanks,
Brian
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[Captainfab]

There isn't anything better about the '71-'72 spindles, or any of the front suspension, versus the '73-'87. In fact I prefer the '73-'87 control arm rubber bushings over the '72 and earlier steel control arm bushings. Also the '71-'72 upper ball joints are more expensive than the '73-'87 uppers.

Around here the '67-'72 trucks have been popular for over 30 years, so used parts used to be hard to come by and expensive when you did find them. That is one reason I always used the '73-'87 parts.

[Snowbound]

Thanks Capt'n.

Since the yard charges by the piece, what is the basic minimum needed for the swap?

I'm sure I only used spindles, rotors, calipers, and steering linkage on my last swap. I remember installing new ball joints in my upper control arms to make it work.

I read through most of this, but most guys are swapping the whole shebang. No sense paying for crossmember and control arms, springs, etc, if I don't need it!

Brian

[Captainfab]

You can use your original control arms, just change the ball joints to match the spindle you use.

The minimum you will need are the spindles, rotors, calipers, pads, hoses, proportioning valve, master cylinder, booster if desired, steering linkage, and steering box and pitman arm if you want power steering as well. Sometimes the used rotors are a toss up. If they are worn and need turned, that may cost near as much as new ones from your local auto parts supplier.

[CdM]

Not to kick a dead horse.. but in all of this no one has brought up welding perches on a 3/4 ton cross member so you can use 1/2 ton lca... or a 3/4 ton lca from 67-up. Just wondering why this option seems to be not at all common.

[Captainfab]

I have not gone there with any discussion concerning the '63-'66 C20's and C30's simply because it would not be the easiest task to correctly locate the saddles onto the crossmember. If not done very precisely, there could be alignment and steering issues. Additionally, the saddles would have to be either found on a donor crossmember, or fabricated. IMO it would likely be a tossup between performing that much work and just switching the crossmember.

[Darkrider]

Ok....Just revisiting this from the perspective of possibly going the route of 5 lug...I know where there is a C10 Burb that i could prob get the parts from that if im not mistaken is just a roller. So to convert my truck to 5 lug front i have two options correct?

drill out the rivets of both front suspensions and swap in the entire front assembly from the Burb

or remove the Control arms and spindles from the burb and bolt them to my existing crossmember

As for converting the rear to 5 lug how reliable is having the original rear axles redrilled? If im not mistaken only one of the 5 holes needs to be drilled through part of an existing hole from the 6 lug correct?