The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Big Bolts 14" Front Drum Brakes

Modern trucks I've owned had disc brakes in front and drums in rear. Why? Because you need more braking power up front. If you have too much in the rear, when carrying no load you'll lock them up.

This seems to be different than what they did on the TF era 1 1/2 ton trucks (and others for that matter). In this case, they have larger brakes in the back. Why? Is the assumption that you'll alway be carrying a load?

My 1 ton has 14" drums on the back, but the fronts are these skimpy little 12" jobs. I know the 1 1/2 tons had 14" up front (possibly the same drums as my rears). I wonder if they could be swapped onto my 1 ton front axle?

So the backing plate would have to attach, the drum would have to fit the hub, it would be convenient to have the same bolt pattern (8 on 6 1/2"), ... what else? Anybody ever hear of this being done? Anybody got a 1958 (or close) year 1 1/2 ton front axle in the scrap pile?

Thanks!

Changing the front brakes to 14" would probably be a lot more trouble than its worth. Adding a power booster and a dual master cylinder(for safety) along with a complete rebuild of the brake system would more than likely give you all the brakes you need.There are kits avail. to add the booster and dual M/C for your truck. My 66 c30 has the same size brakes as your truck and with the addition of the power booster stops just fine loaded and empty. God bless, Mike

I don't know much about TF trucks. On AD trucks the 3800 and 4100 share some front end components. The 4100 is the shortest 1-1/2 ton truck.

Now I would speculate some swap possibilites here, but I see one significant problem. If the TF is like the AD the 1-ton has 8-lug hubs and the 4000 series trucks are all 10-lug, generally using only half of them on the front.

I doubt you want to run 20 inch budd wheels on the front of your 1-ton.

The truck came stock with a hydrovac. Single master cylinder of course. I'd like to stick with this for originality and its good fit. I've always wondered if the safety reason for a dual master cylinder wasn't more hype than reality. I understand the reasoning behind the dual cylinder, but I've never heard of someone who's master cylinder broke while driving.
I definitely don't want to run 20" buds on my truck. Don't know that they would fit inside the fenders either.

I think the dual system was designed to take some of the risk away from failures in the complete system, most of those being beyond the master cylinder.

The main purpose of the dual master cyl if you blow a brake line or hose you will still have some braking power left as with the single cyl you lose it all. I think if you rebuild your present system, replace all metal and rubber lines, and the hydrovac is working properly. You will be suprised at how well the truck will stop. One thing you might want to try ( if you can find them) is the new brake shoes with the kevlar lining. I hear they make a big improvement.....Mike