The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop updating 54 chevy pickup brakes

OK I guess I'm a little green on this subject. I wanting to update my brakes to at least. A dual master cylinder maybe disc on the front. I want to keep my brake pedal that I have. I don't want it to cost me a small fortune either if that is possible.

Do you want to change anything else on the truck?

A common change is from torque tube to open drive line, and that is likely to mean changing the rear axle. If you change the rear axle you usually also change the rear brakes.

So what else might you be thinking of changing? It might impact the answer to your brake question, and if it does it will definitely impact what you spend if you end up redoing anything.

If it were me I'd go to CPP and buy their front disk kit (either five lug or six lug) and buy their dual master bracket. You can choose a complete kit with everything or buy the minimal kits and collect other parts locally.

Mostly likely you'll need to re-plumb your brake lines as part of the process.

I like CPP but others don't. You might want to search for brakes and read what others have experienced.

The torque tube seems to be doing me OK so I don't plan on changing it. Not sure about going to disc yet but I do know I want different master cylinder. I can cut and weld but don't have a lathe so really need something to bolt on. Just needing to make some upgrades to make it safe as I drive it every day

Also what is wrong with CPP. Do they not deliver as advertised. Bad parts????

I put a set of front disc brakes. Master cylinder kit that went in where the old one came out and used the original pedal,on my 55 1st Everything went on pretty good, (some minor fitting). Also suggest that you change your front wheel bearings to tapered roller bearings at this point. The problem that I ran into with the CPP set was after I got every thing installed, I noticed that the brake pads were sitting about 1/8 inch past the end of the rotors. I have been doing brakes for 20 years, and all the brake pads I have seen sit 1/8 inch inside the rotor. I attempted to contact CPP and after 2 weeks of messing around I finally got a response. I sent them pictures of the problem, and after several days of back and forth they finally said that it was correct??? that there was nothing wrong! Temporarily I put the pads on a grinder and ground a 1/4 inch bevel on them so I wouldn't ruin the rotor. When I sent in the questionaire rating their product, I again detailed the problem and of course gave them a poor rating. I got a reply back stating that they were sorry I was dissatisfied but they hoped I would consider them in the future.
Performance wise, I still haven't hooked up the power booster for the master cylinder, but my brakes are ten times as better than they were before. I would recommend this conversion, but NOT CPP.

Read Bruce Jr's response. His problem with CPP is typical of what some have experienced. Interestingly just this morning I looked at a recent CPP disk conversion that did not have the problem Bruce mentioned.

This truck is setting in a shop with no engine or transmission, and with the front clip removed so it was easy to look at. I bought some parts the guy had on craigslist and was just enjoying a tour of his shop that included a '48 Chevy 1/2-ton with the CPP disk kit on the front.

I asked the guy how he felt about the kit and he mentioned some small issues but his biggest complaint was that he wanted to run stock wheels and they won't fit with the calipers in place.

Others have talked about problems with the directions, or needed to drill holes larger in the caliper brackets and things like that.

Most disk brake kits will not allow use of the stock wheels. Actually I don't know that any of them do allow using stock wheels, thought some advertise that they do. I would plan on using something other than stock wheels if converting to disks.

I installed the 12 inch disc kit. which would requre a caliper bracket unique to that kit, and it appears that the bracket holes were drilled 1/4 inch too far out,resulting in my problem. If the other kits were correctly drilled, they would not display the same problem. When I get a chance. I will weld the holes in the bracket and redrill them 1/4 inch toward the center, which should fix the problem. Mistakes happen, but CPP's poor customer service response and denial of a problem were what I take issue with.

Problems I ran into with the CPP kit on my '54 GMC pick-up here.

I ran into similar problems with the Performance Online kit for my '54 GMC Suburban. On both I had to cut and re-weld the M/C bracket and grind notches in the caliper brackets.

I know what you mean Bruce, there are some companies I refuse to deal with because of the way they have treated me.

It is interesting to me that some people get excellent service from companies I'll never talk to again, and others have bad experiences with companies I've found great to work with.

It probably means people like you and I are making decisions about these vendors based on the one or two bad customer service reps they have, not on the average.

I'll never buy from Chevy Duty or whatever their new name is again, though I know some people love them.

Back to the original question. Bluecarpenter you haven't defined your budget except to say you don't want to spend a lot. Are you trying to do this for a couple hundred or under $1,000 or what?

I believe I spent about $700 when I did my brakes. That included converting the front to disk, a dual master, all new brake lines, and new wheel cylinders and shoes with turned drums in the rear. I paid a couple hundred for the five-lug disk kit and dual master bracket and bought the rotors and calipers and other brake parts locally.

I had already put a five-lug year under the back of the truck, and the cost I remember may include expenses associated with that part of the project.

It took me longer to do the job than I expected because I didn't realize I'd need to completely re-plumb the font to support disk brakes. I had to learn about residual valves and proportioning valves to make it work, but when I finished the job I was able to use the truck as my primary driver and now seven years later I have no problems with the brakes.

at this rate i want to do it right. but right know if i could install a master cylinder and use my existing brakes till it warms up would help. from looking at some of the different sites looks like it may cost around $600+. i don't really want power brakes i just want manual. so no booster is needed for me. if i can get the parts locally that would help.