The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk "56-3200 Dual Master/Front Disk Conversion??

Hi Folks,
I haven't posted for quite a while as a deal on a "57 GMC Burb fell through Well my son just picked up a '56 Chevy 3200, a few dents but rust free $100 for his first vehicle, no engine or trans or radiator. Except for the radiator and the desire to find a good 292 to put in it we should be able to handle getting some sort of an engine in to make it driveable. The big concern is finding the easiest and cheapest way to convert to at least a dual brake master cylinder and hopefully front disk brakes. I assume that one of the difficulties of converting to disk is fitting a vacuum booster into the stock location, so I was wondering if anyone has a suggestion for a non power master that will work well with disk brakes, like the way I did my '68 Mustang? I know there are a ton of slick conversions available for big $$$ but there must be an effective yet economical way to accomplish this. Would I be correct in guessing that the dual Master is easy but disks get harder?
Thanks for any thoughts,
Gene

When I converted my '55 1st GMC to disks I used an inexpensive kit on the front, used the rear axle from a car that matched the components the kit used on the front, and used a power brake dual master without the power booster, but from the same car, to complete a system with matched components.

Basically I had a '73 Chevelle wagon, used teh rear and the drum brakes under the rear, then bought the disk brake kit, and dual master mount from ChevyDuty, and bought rotors, calipers and master for the Chevelle. I also replumbed the entire system using the combination valve from the wagon and a pair of residual valves I ordered online from somewhere.

My brakes work great.

Where you are going to run into trouble is that there are no kits to put disk brakes on a 3200 as far as I know. Guys have found ways to adapt disks to the bigger spindles, but unless you really plan to use this truck as a 3/4-ton pickup, I'd consider finding a 1/2-ton front axle and swapping that in place and upgrading it to disks.

A 3200 is a 1/2-ton long bed. A 3/4-ton is a 3600. Kits are widely available for the 1/2-ton.

My mistake. I forget that outside the Advance Design years things are sometimes a little different...

Hi & thanks for the replies,
Now I know what the difference between a 3100 & 3200 is. I've been looking into a way to use 5-lug truck brakes with the 5 on 5 lug pattern. Check this thread also http://www.stovebolt.com/bboard/cgi-bin//ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=22;t=002672 I'd really like to find some other folks interested in going this route to help bring the price down a bit. Please tell me what you think.
Thanks,
Gene & Jr