The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks 1963 suspension upgrade

Hi all , New member here, hoping for some ideas, I have a 63 Fleet side 350 sbc older restoration and would like to upgrade the front-end suspension and add disc brakes. I thought I heard that there were some later model control arm /spindle/ disc brake bolt on conversions hoping to keep the same height.
Thanks

Did you read this: https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1439568/anti-sway-bar-info.html

We had a '63 pickup with the 292. I thought it handled well except It did roll quite a bit with a heavy Caveman camper in the bed.

I highly recommend buying a disc brake kit from CPP. Drop spindles is available as well as stock height. I’ve used the kit on both of my trucks.
The 1973-87 front crossmember and suspension will swap under your truck. That will give you 5 lug disc brake rotors. You will also be swapping in 30+ year old parts. It all depends on your standards and how much labor you want to tackle.

These trucks already have modern suspension. Upper lower control arms. Trailing arm independent suspension in rear. Only real upgrades i see are adjustable spring shock combos and sway bars.

C10? C20? I bought the C20 disc brake kit from CPP, and ended up throwing 50% of the parts in the trash because they were inferior product. The only thing I used from the kit was the calipers, spindles, backing plate and rotors. I had to buy new ball joints, the ball joints provided in the kit were junk, maybe 20% of the threads caught on the castle nut and ball joint stud. One hard bump and the whole thing would have come apart, if they could even be torqued to spec to begin with without stripping the nut or stud. Tie rod ends and adjuster sleeves were no no good, the bearings were cheap chineseium. I couldn't use the brake lines they provided either. For a $900+ kit back in 2005, I ended up spending close to that in replacement parts to get a solid it that would be safe on the road. I wouldn't recommend CPP because of my experience with their C20 kit, but maybe their quality is better now, or their C10 kit is good quality.

Converting to front disc was definitely worth the hassle in the end, the truck stops really well compared to the 4-drum setup. If it were me I would find a donor truck and swap in the front end from a 73-87 Chevy truck. I didn't know that was doable when I bought my kit, had I known that, I would have gone the donor route instead of the CPP route.