The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 1958 4400 Disc Brake Conversion

Now that I have the rear axle on "Thor" swapped out its time to tackle the front brakes. I had planned to use the hubs and rotors from the Motorhome donor, that just wasn't going to work. The Motorhome had IFS and the spindles were not going to fit, the diameter of the spindle was to large to make just using the hubs and rotors feasible.

I did a lot of measuring and research and came up with a plan. I would find a rotor that could be bolted to the original hub and make a bracket to mount a caliper on. I took the basic idea for the bracket from the kit I used on "Ernest " my '59 1/2 ton. While the concept was the same the bracket would be completely different.

I found a rotor the would bolt up to the hub much like the original drum had. The rotor is from a 2000 model GM Tiltmaster. It has a 12 bolt circle and is 14.25" in diameter. I only needed to drill 6 of the holes to 9/16 " to match the original hub bolt pattern. The rotor bolts in place of the drum using all grade 8 hardware.

For the caliper I needed one that had a separate support bracket. I found one from a 2015 F@$d F450. The caliper is designed to fit a 14.24" rotor and the same width as the rotor from the Tiltmaster.

Once the rotor and caliper were determined I had to deal with bearings. I wanted to up grade from the original ball to a tapered roller. I determined that my Truck is equipped with a light duty front axle making the bearing size different for '58 - '59. After finding the web site I post earlier it was easy. I changed both inner and outer cones and races and now have tapered bearings.

Designing the actual caliper bracket mount started off pretty crude. I used cardboard to form templates and worked from there. Once I had a basic layout the pattern was transferred to 3/8 " steel plate and cut out. I worked with the new bracket until I was satisfied with the fit and dimension.

I have the caliper and rotor mounted up. I'm working on the brake master cylinder and booster mount as of now. I'm pretty happy with the end results and will up date as things progress. For now "Thor" has a 4 wheel disc system. I will do a complete write up on this project once it's proven, for now here are a few pictures of the progress.