Front to rear brake swap

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Cravin'sCuda

Cravin'sCuda

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Today I was working on the front brakes and had previously installed the spindles so the brake cailpers were at the rear.(Completly rebuilt the front end). I dont have the engine in it and when turning lock to lock it seems like the caliper hits the LCA. With the engine in the car will that change? I'm trying to use the stock sway bar. I read several places were it says not to do it and some say its ok. Should I put them back to the front and use a aftermarket swaybar? Also If I leave them to the rear which brakes hoses to use-1980 Volare and what are people here using? Thanks in Adv. :banghead:
 
I put them toward the rear when I changed my car over from drums using a setup from a 74 dart and tubular upper control arms.And kept the stock sway bar with a little tweaking
 
I just did the same thing on my 69 Dart disc swap. I was following a tech article from moparts:

http://www.moparts.com/Tech/tech/pages/abody.html

The pic at the top of the page shows the caliper towards the rear and that combined with this statement made me believe they were supposed to go towards the rear.

"13. It is NOT adviseable to switch the Caliper from front to rear, the Chrysler engineers, found it best to place the caliper in the rear of the the spindel, to aid in heat transfer, and this also helps keep the road grime from entering the piston"

This is pretty confusing b/c it says its not advisable to swap them then it turns around and says that the engineers found it best to mount them in the rear?!?! :shaking: They need to fix that.

Does anyone know if it really is a bad thing to swap them to the rear? What are the negative effects? I am running an aftermarket sway bar so I may swap them back to the front just b/c that's where they are supposed to go.
 
It is not a problem. The factory mounted the same calipers to the rear on the F/M/J bodies. To mount them in front with an early sway bar requires shortening the end links. You also need clearance between the forward ball joint bolt and the sway bar tab.
 
Jim Lusk said:
It is not a problem. The factory mounted the same calipers to the rear on the F/M/J bodies. To mount them in front with an early sway bar requires shortening the end links. You also need clearance between the forward ball joint bolt and the sway bar tab.
Click to expand...

I agree. :thumblef:

And don't believe that crap about you car blowing up in flames like in an TV episode of CHiPs from not using F/M/J body spindle. Bill Reilly has done the math on that one on his www.bigblockdart.com website.

NOTE from that particular Moparts.com article:

"I am a MOPAR ENGINE BUILDER."

So, let this guy built motors and the rest of us can build chassis.
 
jim and autox have hit the nail on the head.............. good call guys.
 
Thanks guys I appreciate the clarification it seems like there is a lot of mis-represented info floating around out there. I will leave them on the rear :thumblef:
 
Cravin,
I used the stock 73 Dart hoses that I picked up from my local parts house. I didn't notice the caliper coming close to the lower control arm it's still jacked up I will check it out.
 
On my Barracuda, the sway bar bracket has been "clearenced" in a little with a 12" Channel locks. Notice the lower ball joint front bolt just sticks out 3 or so threads past the meat of the nut.

weblffrtbrk2.jpg


rbraid.jpg
 
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