What front brake hoses on a 72 to 73 disk brake conversion

1972Duster340 said
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.

I think you're getting too far into your head on this and listening to entirely too much noise on the internet. The routing differences between the pin and slider style calipers are not that different. I have heard arguments against both the front and the rear mount calipers, depending on which hose route that particular person thinks is factory. But both front and rear mounted calipers were used by the factory, and the hard line take off location did not change. The primary issue is the length of the hose, and in your case that shouldn't be an issue. The other issue that comes up is direct interference, like with some of the B-body calipers that have the bottom mounted hose which literally hits hard parts on an A-body application. That shouldn't be the case with E-body pin type calipers.

Here's the deal, I've run front mounted pin style calipers on my '72 Challenger with 11.75" rotors. The Challenger has its hard line location/hose take off to the rear as well, so it runs its hose line from behind the UCA to the forward caliper. My '74 Duster came with factory disk brakes, it has a rear mounted hard line, and the 73+ calipers were front mounted. And I've run the calipers to the rear too, the 13" Cobra kit from DoctorDiff that's on my Duster now has the calipers to the rear and uses the factory hard line mount too. Hasn't been an issue, and I've run them that way for tens of thousands of miles. I don't know why the pin style calipers being rear mounted would be such an issue. Yes, I get that the hose location on the caliper is a little different, but it's not insurmountable.

I would just buy a set of '73 Challenger hoses and see if it works, since those should be the cheaper option. It's not hard to check the routing, just cycle the steering lock to lock and the suspension up and down. There's really no "routing" to do with the calipers to the rear, it's really just making sure the hoses are long enough to allow the full travel of the suspension and steering. If there's an issue you should be able to address it with a custom hose, which isn't that big of a deal. The Challenger hoses thread right into the caliper, if that doesn't work then a banjo end with a bolt should solve the problem.