| How I fitted Disc Brakes to my 63 Galaxie First a couple of important facts as I am based in New Zealand and my car is right hand drive it may affect what parts to use and what is avialable.(front brakes only done) I don't see that left or right cofigureration would change any thing regarding the fiiting of discs First I removed all the drums complete with stubs and hoses ,pipe work back to the master cylinder the master cylinder was allso removed.You may want to store these so as to have original parts. I then obtained a set of kesley hayes discs stub axles calipers and hoses from a Austrailian built 1973 XA falcon common in New Zealand and almost Identical to 1973 Mustang but 4 door. I use Kesley hayes units because I was wanted to stick to American sourced units alltough I see no reason why PBR or other version also fitted to falcon may no be used. I then stripped the units down and inspected the stub axles (a crack test is probaly a good idea) To fit stub axles the top tapper is exactly the same as Galaxie.How ever the bottom is larger on galaxie bootom ball jiont, I chose to ream out the hole in the bottom of the stub axle. this can be done by any half way decent machine shop if you don't feel up to it, heres how i did it. To get the right taper I used a suitable sized adjustable reamer now heres the trick remove the blades from the reamer and reverse them this gives you the right angle for ball jiont taper. It only takes about half an hour to do each one. Be sure to turn the reamer backwards as the cutting edge is now on the left hand side of the blade and will be damaged by turning the conventional direction. You will also need to ream out for the tie rod end tapper but there are conventional reamers already ground to the right taper for this. now you can fit the stub axles to the car you will need to fit a small spacer under the bottom ball jiont nut to secure it should be fairly obvious what to do here. Next I fitted new complete discs and hubs as old units were a total mass of cracks, these were really cheap at about $115.00ea NZ dollars purchased from B&T New Zealand. Also new bearings and seals used. Calipers were re kitted and new disc pads fitted. Falcon flex hoses were used and bolted to same pionts on the cars chassis as old hoses.It is a good idea to remove a small area from the dust plate were it may pinch between the disc and the end of the bottom A arm. also fitted to my Galaxie was Falcon XD dual circuit master cylinder ( the link sharft to the pedal arm will require shortening and you will require some new pipe work or as I did you may be able to use the pipe work from the XD. The XD mater cylinder has built in proportioning valve which works well with rear drums. The results after four years of use much greater driving pleasure also can retain 14" wheels. Please note it may also be nessasary to down size rear wheel cylinders I went to 13/16 this will help proportioning of brakes. Impotant Note I must piont out here I am not an autmotve engineer and if you follow this advice you do so at your own risk as I except no responcibilty for any problems or injury resulting from this conversion.I recomend you first aproach the correct vehicle safety people in your area for local rules and requirements. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to email me a the following address whoppa@xtra.co.nz |