The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Getting my 3600 drivable, brakes & cooling ?

Did a compression check before giving the 350 a complete tune up.
Compression was good and surprisingly even, average of 130 psi.

Now the engine runs well, so I need to sort out the fan situation and brakes/hubs.

The fan sits about 5" away from the radiator, probably too far for Nevada heat in traffic.
I would like to avoid an electric fan, and doubt that an extended spacer is good for water-pump life.
Is there a fan shroud that fits well to overcome this?

I just bought a set of "standard" 8 lug wheel hubs to replace my dual wheel hubs.
I was surprised to see they use ball bearings, is there an interchange for taper bearings?

What is the big obstacle to putting 8 lug disc brakes on the original beam axle?
Reading post here it appears no one makes a kit, I have a few machine tools (CNC mill and lathe, etc.) and welding equipment.
Is there a reason it is truly impractical, or just something no one is doing?

Once these items are sorted out the rest of it should be "easy", right?

Richard - They do make a fan shroud for these trucks. I have seen them on eBay - but have never bought one myself or I'd give you a link. This will help with your airflow.

As for the brakes - You need to hold out for other big bolters - they I'm sure can help on this.

True, no ready made kit for the 3/4 and 1 tons. You might do a search, I seem to recall that someone did cross over the bearings to the taper style. There are also a couple of threads about doing a disk conversion using various rotors and calipers.
A suggestion I'll make on that would be to look at the '01-current Silverado 2500HD/3500. They run a beefy disk with a dual piston caliper.All you would have to do is fab the caliper to spindle mounting bracket. I'm thinking about doing something similar using 1/2 ton parts should i ever swap my '55 over to disk brakes.