What front brake hoses on a 72 to 73 disk brake conversion
If you were going to use stock hoses I would use the 73+ challenger hoses. Those calipers would have been front mounted so they should be more than long enough for a rear mount even with the larger rotors. Your other option would be to go aftermarket and get hoses from DoctorDiff, he sells stainless braided lines for that application.
Thanks for the reply. It looks like Dr. Diff's stuff is not for pin-style calipers. Other research agrees with your suggestion of the 73+ Challenger hoses (1970-74 E-body/1970-72 B-body hoses) for the 1970-72 B-body/1970-74 E-body pin calipers (as opposed to 1973-78 B-body calipers, requiring the block-ended hose fittings).
My concern is that (for 1972-earlier A-bodies with front anti-sway bars), several respected sources say to avoid rear-mounting the calipers out of concern for flex-line/brake hose routing. I do realize there are multiple kits on the market that do rear-mount the calipers, and I'm not sure what accommodations have been made for safely routing the flexline/brake hose. Notably, all of these kits use slider-style calipers. So, no matter what the solution is to rear-mount sliders on a 1972-earlier A-body with reverse-mounted 1973-76 A-body knuckles, it appears this solution is only for sliders.
I did ask Cass, from
Doctordiff.com about this, and he replied custom stainless steel flex lines would be required, but routing would still be questionable. I realize Cass is an expert. I just thought I'd pose the question on here in case someone has different information.
Richard Ehrenberg suggests a solution by simply moving the hardline frame mount from rear of wheel to front of wheel and then running the aforementioned 1970-74 E-body/1970-72 B-body cables.
So it appears, if you want pin calipers, you can't safely "just" rear-mount the calipers and use factory (or even custom) flex-lines. You have to either move the hardline mounting point or else swap in a 1973-76 K-frame, LCAs, upper control arm ball joint (either by using an adapter for the 1972-earlier UCA or else by using a 1973-76 UCA) and anti-sway bar.
I don't think this is new information; it's just clarification and a renewed search to see if there has been any other solution. It seems most people use the sliders, so most discussion is about the sliders. But for the sake of accuracy, the pin-calipers also need to be part of the discussion. It's possible to use them, but requires more changes.
Maybe this point will help the next guy contemplating a disc brake conversion decide what's best for him and his car.
