Got my new daily driver 68 Dart home, purchased it from california.
Car looks good and runs well. However, if you want to stop it, you better think ahead !
Its got 10" drums all around, and the front drums and shoes look brand new, and its manual brakes, no booster. Sometimes i'm using both feet on the brake cause its too much effort for one leg.
Something must be done !
I'm hearing alot about swapping '73 up disks with big bolt pattern, but then I have to swap out my rear end, or at least the axles, and of course new wheels and tires.
OR
I could swap in the earlier small bolt pattern kelsey hays 4piston setup, and not have to change bolt pattern.
OR
I could buy one of the after market disk brake upgrades from stainless steel brakes or whoever,, but these will also convert it to large bolt pattern.

What would you do ? My situation is, this car is to be my daily driver 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. I need better brakes and soon. The aftermarket systems look good, but I have to deal with the bolt pattern change. And a cheaper option would be better, but getting it upgraded soon is my first priority.
As a second question, whats involved with changing the rear to large bolt. Its not an a-3/4 but I haven't determined what rear it is.

First off, I'd advise against switching to the Kelsey Hayes disks. I thought I'd found a great thing when I bought my '72 Swinger with 'em, until I had to do a brake rebuild and found out how freakin' EXPENSIVE all the KH parts are, and that's WHEN you can FIND 'em.

As for aftermarket conversions, wish I'd known about this place when I was car-shopping (would've just gotten a drum brake car and converted). With their kits, you have the choice of 5x4" OR 5x4.5" bolt pattern. Hope this helps...

http://www.ssbrakes.com/

VM

The '73 and newer single piston setup is really a hard combination to beat for a daily driver. I'm not really a fan of the SSBC stuff since it uses unique parts. The version that Master Power brakes sells would be better in my thinking for a daily driver since the MP kit is based on factory parts that you could replace at any NAPA.

Thanks, I didnt realize the SSB kits were available in sbp. I'll definately call them for a price.

As far as the kelseyhayes setup, I've had them before and they work very well, how ever I haven't tried to find rebuild parts for them.

Scott

A power brake booster may be a good first step for a daily driver. I don't know the specifics for the older cars, but you'll want one in the end either way, and it's a quick/cheap step that should show a noticable improvement.

A suspect, that there is still something wrong with some part of your existing brakes, although I've not driven a full manual brake car for some time. One of the wheel cycliners could be frozen, or one branch of the system could need bleeding. Stopping the car with 2 wheels is pretty tough. I've never worked on anything earlier than a 72, so my mental picture of the system as a whole may be incorrect, so please forgive me if I'm being missleading. Are the front and rear lines even separate on his car? Some signs that there are still repairs needed would be a spongy pedal or handling issues during braking. Fluid leaking from the rear axle seals or brake wheel cyclinders can smoke the pads and make braking more difficult. You said the front looks new, but are the rear in good condition as well?

Anyways, you might be O.K. for temporary with a booster and any lingering problems repaired. This would give you time to collect all the needed parts to switch to big bold front and rear with disk brakes. Depending on your driving style, you might even slow down and keep the car the way it is (plus the booster). I though 10" drums was the big brakes in 68?

For the rear end, I suggest just find a used rear with the bigger bolt pattern and swap the whole unit, since I don't think the axles interchange easily. Redrilling or aftermarket axles don't seem any cheaper than the rear swap. (when you deceide to do the upgrade)

Hope this helps, and good luck with your new ride.

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1980 Aspen 225 super six

If you have to use both feet to stop the car somthing is put together incorrectly. My 70Valiant has 9" drums up front and 10" in the rear and I have no trouble stopping the car quickly from near triple digit speeds. I would make sure that someone didnt inadvertantly put the brake shoes on backwards. does it stop better in reverse?

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Haven't noticed if it stops easier in reverse. I haven't had a chance to really check it out yet. I just know there was a receipt in the glove box for recent brake work and the front drums look new.
The brake pedal is firm and does not feel mushy. Its quite possible something is wrong with the work that was done.

I was also thinking of the power booster as well, wheather it gets disks or not, its definatly getting power brakes.

The masterpower system does sound good since it uses oem style parts, but that probably means its a single piston, large bolt pattern system. And that puts me back to swapping the whole car over to large bolt.

Lots of good info so far,,, thanks

A stock slant six with ten inch drums all around should have pretty decent stopping power. If your pedal is firm I woudl suspect that one or more or your sets of shoes is out of adjustment.

(1) at each wheel pull the tire and drum off and tighten up the "star wheel" until the drum slips over the shoes with a snug fit (not too tight, just a slight drag as you put the drum back on.

(2) while you are in there check and make sure that the automatic adjuster system is hooked up and functional (its the cable that attaches to the lever that turn the star wheel). Repair and automatic adjusters as necessary.

(3) find a long mild grade hill in a relatively deserted area and back down the hill repeatedly pressing and releasing your brakes. Speed isn't important, but the more times you step on the brakes the better your adjustment will be.

(4) drive away and see if your brakes feel any better.

If the brake work was done by a shop I wouldn't trust it. Most brake shops I have gone to were crooks and most young mechanics I have talked to don't know how to correctly adjust drum brakes.

A shop manual or a Haynes/chiltons manual is a big help when working on drum brakes since they give great pictures and explanations of how they work.

Reed, Your probably right.
Next free saturday I get, I'll get the drums off and have a look at whats going on. I'm on old guy and I've owned lots of old drum brake cars and they all stopped better than this,,,, there must be somthing wrong in the adjustment or somthing.
Course if the shoes were out of adjustment the pedal probably would go farther down before resistance is felt. The pedal is nice and high and feels very firm.
hopfully I'll have time to check it out real soon.

Scott

I cuncur with Reed. My '72 Valiant beater has 9" drums all around, and it stops GREAT. That is, of course, a subjective opinion, but like 70Valiant sez, it'll stop fine from well over the speed limit. The only problem would be if I decided to rally Kermit and drive to South America, he might suffer from brake fade!

I had one '65 Belvedere that had good hard pedal and 10" drums wall-to-wall... The stopping sucked when I got it. Problem was traced to a fossilized rear brake hose that was swelled up to the point of being almost completely blocked (arterioschlerosis?)... Enough pressure squirted thru to make it look like the shoes were engaging, but the rear brakes were effectively locked out. A new hose solved the problem and made it stop like a champ.

D/W

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If it ain't broke, fix it!

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Course if the shoes were out of adjustment the pedal probably would go farther down before resistance is felt. The pedal is nice and high and feels very firm.
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Not necessarily. I owned/driven a few all drum cars (as well as some disc/drum) where the pedal was nice and firm but the braking sucked due to drums being misadjusted. If one or two drums are adjusted correctly or too tight at the same time as others are too loose you may only be engaging one or two brakes fully when you get that "firm" feel from the brake pedal. I woudl double check all your hoses and hard lines as well as the drum adjustment.

Point is, just cuz the pedal is firm doesn't mean the brakes are adjusted right.

A year or two ago I put a KH setup on my 71 duster. The parts are still availible, calipers loaded were about $70-80 each, rotors were $70 each.

There is only one thing I don't like about it... the rotors can't be cut much, 20 thousands iirc. But by the time I found this out, I already had my parts gatherd and it was too late.

If I were to do it again, I would get the 73-76 BBP setup and just keep a second spare in the trunk.

Before I improved the brakes, it had stock 9" (un-boosted) all around and it had decent stoping power. If you need 2 feet with 10" brakes on a lighter car, then yes something is deffinately wierd.

I just did the disc swap on my '74 Scamp. Haven't driven it yet but the front is all together. I bought a setup from a JY for $150 bucks. The only thing that is hard to get are the spindle(Knuckle) and caliper adapter and splash guard. All other parts can be had at auto parts stores. I'll post pictures soon on my project. The job is not particularaly hard but not easy either in that the more I got into it the more I realized I needed this and that. I believe I spent nearly 500 dollars in parts. UCA,LCA bushings, strut rod bushings tie rod ends etc, etc, etc. I basically rebuilt the whole front end.

But I would look at hoses and possibly the Master Cylinder. If the master cylinder has be changed it possibly is the wrong one. There were several types with different bores and stokes.

Also I like the sound of the plugged hose as the possible culprit. Look into that. Stock drums should stop fine. The big reason I swapped was because we have a lot of flooded streets during monsoons and drums make braking difficult in rain.

Good luck.

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Sweet Emotion

Check the master cylinder. It could very well be that you have a bad piston seal, and not getting fluid to either the rear or front brakes. I had this problem when I got my Satellite, that also had some brake work done. Well, the rear shoes where brand new, because of the M/C being bad (a cup had been installed back wards, causing the rear brakes to be uneffective). Replaced that and stopped great. I also have the 10X2.5" drums all around. Stops great, just don't ask it to do it repeatedly at high speeds.