This car was originally a slant 6 car, but was already a 318 when we bought it, so the brakes were scary to my Wife. She likened it to driving her VW Bug to school, back in the 70's.
It took a little work but not much expensive stuff, to do this one. First and foremost was changing the rearend to make it long enough,to not require spacers. I ended up using a $275 junkyard 2wd Explorer 8.8 axle assembly, mainly because it was 3.55 ratio, disc brake equipped and I already had a posi for it on the shelf. It did need brake shoes for the parking brake and I goofed on the length of the right side parking brake cable, so I will have to find and cut another cable. New U-bolts and a cut and weld session, to put the Ford flange on the driveshaft, means that, for less than $375 I had the rear done.
The front was a standard late model disc conversion, using RMS upper control arms, and I paid more for them, than the rearend. I didn't wanna give up the front swaybar, so I put the calipers behind the spindle centerline and just rebent new factory replacement brake hoses, as tight as I could wrap them, along the calipers. Wheel spacers, and 3 inch studs, are a lightly unnerving neccessity on the front, and at the moment I'm using 2 of them per side, for a total of 11/16 thickness, per side. I'm not real fond of that idea and I run a lathe for a living, so I will be making a beter spacer arrangement, soon.
Thinking that 13 inch Cobra rotors are in the future, just gotta figure out what calipers and mounts I wanna run, then I can lose the wheel spacers completely and make, or buy(maybe) a hub to fit the combo correctly.
We've got 235/55-17 tires on the rear and I end up with 235/45-17 on the front. When we wear this set of fronts out I'll replace'em with 245/45-17, simply 'cause they look a little small to me!
If ya think I should take a pic or 2, tell me what you wanna see!
