Dart 72 vs 73 susp dilemma
If I say I hate the u3 and later K member, I’d be lying but I don’t know what word is better. I hate it. I hate spool mounts.
Ok, got that rant off my chest. Yes, you could get disc brakes in 72, but I’m not sure you could with a /6. Maybe if it was ordered that way, or maybe you could. The fender tag will tell you the story.
As for the brakes...the 73 single piston caliper brakes IMO are a downgrade from the 72 four piston calipers. I’ve had both and I have the 73 stuff now and I prefer the 72 stuff.
All your performance brakes are multiple piston calipers. The K-H four piston calipers get a ton of hate, like the 67-72 K members, but that’s what I like. I’m converting my 73 to a 67-72 K member, but I, keeping the 73 brakes because I don’t want the small bolt circle.
What you have is fine, most of the stuff interchanges. If you do have the spool mount K member just make sure you order the 73 parts to rebuild the front end.
It's like backward world in here. The spool mounts are better. The don't separate like the original mounts and they positively control the engine from moving forward and back. I mean, you can not like them if you want, but performance-wise they're the superior mount. And like AndyF said the sway bar is tucked up inside the K, better routing and more ground clearance.
You could order disk brakes on /6 cars. The single piston slider calipers were an upgrade over the 4 piston KH calipers, not a downgrade. You can argue that a fixed caliper is better than a slider
in general, or that
in general multi-piston calipers are better, but with leaky seals and parts that are very difficult to find the KH brakes are not better now. The 73+ single piston sliders are simple, work great, and take a lot more abuse. Just because the Kh brakes were multi-piston does not make them better, they're different than modern multi-piston calipers. Just because multi-piston calipers are used in higher performance applications does not mean that
EVERY multi-piston caliper is better.
If someone has a full KH disk set up on their car already that's one thing, but the OP already has a single piston slider set up. Tracking down all the parts for the KH disks would be a pain, not to mention expensive. And then he'd have to convert it back to small upper ball joints and figure out the SBP vs BBP thing by either doing the mustang rotor conversion or buying new wheels. He already has the better set up.
And the tie rod diameter bigger is better. bigger is always better
Nope. Not true. The tie rod diameters were the same for all A-bodies, 9/16". C-bodies ran 11/16" tie rods, and while that used to be a nice way to upgrade the strength it's unnecessary now. The weak part is not the 9/16" tie rod end, it's the spit tube adjuster. Now you can buy tubular adjusters that aren't split, which eliminates the flex in the tie rod adjuster. So you can stay with 9/16" ends
Take some pictures and post them and we'll be able to tell you what you have. The 1973 and newer stuff is better than the older stuff so the more of it you have the better. I converted my '72 Duster all over to the '73+ stuff since it works better. The anti-sway bar is tucked inside the K frame where it should be, the late model knuckle uses a larger wheel bearing, the late model brakes are a better design, the spool mount is a better design than the pad mount, etc.
Exactly. Everyone swaps their cars to the 73+ parts- BBP, large ball joints, larger wheel bearings, better brakes, better mounts, better sway bar set up, etc, etc.
