The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Dual circuit brakes

Put in the new radiator, new hoses, gas tank and with a little sweat and blood got baby running and moving on her own yesterday. Now on to the next step....getting her to stop.

I have no problem with manual drum brakes - neither does the budget. And this subject was touched on briefly in another thread. Has anyone made the conversion from the single circuit to a dual circuit manual drum brake set up? In the other thread it was suggested that the MC out of a '67 was a direct bolt in for my '66.

Any help would be appreciated.

I've not made this exact conversion so I can't speak to direct bolt-in from experience.

My bet is that the dual master will easily bolt up where the single is removed. Getting the right length rod may mean using the early or the late or even modifying one. Someone else may speak to that.

I think it was '68 that the dual master approach became required by law. '71 was when disk brakes became an option on these trucks and '72 they became standard. Looking at a truck built with dual master and front drum brakes should give you what you need.

Most likely you will need to do some plumbing to make it all work right. I'd suggest you find a '68 to '70 with the stock setup and study it a little before choosing or paying for any parts. You'll get a good idea how the factory solved the problems that way, and it should go easier than it might otherwise.

While the body changed in '67 the frame suspension and brakes are all basically the same. Years ago I parked a '66 and a '70 next to each other and in one weekend swapped the motors and drove both away. My memory of the effort is that they were extremely similar, even though the '66 was a Powerglide truck and the '70 was a manual transmission four-wheel-drive.

I currently have a '72 that is basically stock and a '55 1st that I've converted to dual master and front disks. I'll tell you what I can from those, but neither is quite what you are dealing with.

I didn't do it, but I bought a 66 for parts, it had a 67-70 master on it. No dist. block, they just added another line down to the TEE under the engine where it tees off to the rear. Truck stopped real good. I know a 71 manual brake master fits right where the single pot master was before.

Thanks guys. I have been trying to locate my old Bendix brake catalog but have had no luck. And now-a-days there are no old paper catalogs at the parts houses to do any research. They pretty much look at you like you are from Mars or something if you tell 'em what you're planning on doing.

I know I would have to replumb but was planning on replacing the steel lines and hoses anyway so that's no big deal - just buy the dual circuit set.

Well as this progresses I will keep ya'll informed.