When we bought my brother's 74 Duster, the seller included what was described as all the parts needed to do a disc brake swap. I figured the guy knew what he was talking about, and the boxes contained what appeared to be A-body rotors, calipers, steering knuckles, and a proportioning valve.

That was a year ago. Flash forward to today. I finally got around to doing the front end rebuild and disc brake swap on the Duster. All went (relatively) swimmingly until I mounted the steering knuckles and looked at how the caliper mounted and the brake line.



Specifically, mounting the caliper on the front of the rotor makes the brake line far too short to ever reach the stock hard brake line on the back of the wheel area.



Now, looking at the condition of the disc brake parts, specifically the fresh paint, fresh grease, new looking brake lines, obviously new foam gasket on the spindle, new looking calipers, etc... it appears that these parts were fairly new and in good nick when pulled from their previous installation. However, it appears that these calipers should go on the back of the rotor, not the front, as called for by the FSM. Enforcing this idea is the fact that there are two bags of the greebly bits for each side- stuff like the nut and washer that goes on the end of the spindle. One of the bags, the one labelled "driver", also contains the disc brake anti-rattle clips. However, when the calipers are mounted towards the front of the car, the caliper that goes on the driver's side already had the anti-rattle clips installed, but the caliper for the passenger side didn't.

It looks to me like these should really be mounted on the back of the rotor. For some reason I have it in my head that in 76 Mopar moved A-body calipers from the front of the rotor to the back. Am I mistaken? If I am mistaken, what sort of hodgepodge of parts do I have here? Some weird mix of other Mopar car line brakes? Do I just have the wrong flexible brake lines?

Here are the only part numbers I could find stamped on the parts (all parts still have the pentastar, so I don't think they are remans):

Disc brake caliper-
4497A
J18
8699 962
L7
58401

Caliper to knuckle adapter bracket-
776
23258

Thanks in advance to all the gurus who help out with questions like this.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

You have some parts mixed up. The adapters prolly need to go on the other side ......

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Yeah....Im the one who destroyed this rare, vintage automobile.....

You bolted the brake line on backwards, the long metal part should be pointing to the rear, turn it 180.

Also FYI with those A-body listed brake lines, I could not get mine to fit, they stretched when I turned the wheels all the way. I had to get some F/M/J body brake lines and cut the little bracket off them...they're a little longer.

Everything else looks correctly installed.

For what it is worth, the brake lines were bolted on by whoever owned these parts before me. THere is fluid in the lines, so they were hooked up and working as is. I think I need to swap spindles and calipers side-to-side, but I want some confirmation via part numbers, if possible, before I do this.

Thanks.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Dude...look up a mopar article online or something, it will show you how to do it. This brake lines are on BACKWARDS... You want the long metal part close to the center rotation of the axis, so if you turn the wheel each way the rubber part of the line won't 'flex' back and forth nearly as much.

Think about it, if you put the spindles on opposites, look at that line, when you turn the wheels in each direction it will STRETCH and COMPRESS the line's length a TON, that is incorrect!

OK, OK. It has been a while since I did a disc brake swap. I went back and double checked the service manual and you are right- the brake line IS on backwards. I'll swap it around and try again.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Good call Shadow! I switched the brake line around and now it looks like it will fit. Whew! What a relief.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Is the bleeder screw on the top?

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Joshua

Yup. Bleeder screw on top.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.

Glad it worked!

Once the car is down on all 4 tires, make sure you can turn the car the full direction each way and make sure the brake lines aren't stretched. This can be an issue, especialy if you have 11.75" discs. Good luck...

Will do. It will be a while before it is on all fours for good, but I will be sure to make sure everything works.

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Casually looking for a Clifford hyperpak intake for cheap.