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.

Well I can tell you this with the thickness of that bracket it isnt going anywhere. I love the enginuity to figure out that the tiltmaster rotors will bolt up to the front hubs on those axles. Make sure you mark which axle you have in whatever writup you do because I am willing to be not all axles of that style will use the bolt pattern. I am looking forward to seeing the whole upgrade done.

Nice work! Thor never had it so good!

I think Thor is giving me a time with this... Just wait until I tackle the 5 speed conversion.

Wow, that's nice work! This is what I was going to do if I hadn't found the original drums for my bus. Although, at $420 per drum, the cost would have been about sixes versus converting to disc. Honestly I just didn't feel like doing all that extra engineering when the oversized brakes it has, are already adequate.

Good looking work! That's pretty similar to the way we adapted various disc systems to the round track cars, and it was pretty common to use rotors and calipers from different makes of vehicles. Here's a sneaky trick for anyone who is considering tackling such a project. Once the hub and rotor are married up and the hub is mounted onto the spindle, use air pressure to clamp the caliper and pad assembly to the rotor and tighten up the spindle nut enough to keep the hub from turning. It's a handy "third hand" while you're making up those templates for the caliper mounting bracket.
Jerry

That’s Great looking work TUTS 59. If ever down that way I will look you up