[notdavidspade]

Hi Folks,
Need a real ford experts advice on this one, someone that really knows their Galaxies. I have a 68 manual drum car.

Initially I was going to upgrade to power drums.. however I decided to just go all the way to power disk. I purchased spindles, rotors, calipers, booster and master from a 69 to swap over.

My manual master looks like this. Hard to tell in the photo, but there are 2 sets of bolts, top and bottom about 3 inches apart:


The power drum booster looks is on the right.. It has a funky bracket and this atleast looks like it would bolt on... the power disk booster is on the left... the long bolts on teh back of it are 4 inches apart top to bottom.. I don't see any holes that far apart on the car.

Firewall side of drum booster, the bracket connects to the booster with studs 3 and a half inches apart:

Firewall side of disk booster, as said.. these are about 4 inches apart.:


the pins coming out of the boosters are not the same either.. so I can't just swap the master cylinders over. (disk comes out about 1 inch while drum is over an inch and a half.


Power drum:



Power disk:


So question is.. am I missing parts for the disk brake booster to bolt up? Is the 69 firewall different than a 68? Do I just need to start drilling holes? I'm trying to avoid being a hack. Input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Stephen

[notdavidspade]

Answered some of my own questions... FYI... Ford changed the firewall from 68 to 69. 69 boosters bolt directly to the firewall. 68 (and probably earlier) use a bracket like that on my drum booster. Still researching if the bracket is the same for drum vs. disc.

[lincolndriver]

I may be a little late to chime in on this one, but the 69 is built on a different frame than the 68. the 69 uses the same frame as the heavier tbirds,and continentals. so they carry the larger brakes and bolt pattern wheels and a different proportioning valve. I wouldnt use them. I would use your power drum booster with a master cylinder from a 76-79 thunderbird style vehicle. and p-valve from the same.
hope this helps.

[notdavidspade]

Update – the car is back together with disk brakes up front.
Here’s what I’ve learned along the way:

I ended up buying a ‘new’ rebuild power disc master and booster for a 68 on rock auto. This solved the issues I was having with booster rod length and master cylinders. The bracket from the power drum booster bolted to this new booster. Also, a 64-68 t-bird seems to use a similar bracket if you need one. I had to play with the orientation of the linkages to get the brake pedal up to the proper distance from the floor.

All the hard lines that were on my drum car did not play nicely with the disk brakes. The fitting from hard line to hose were a different size and the fitting at the proportioning valve is different as well. Because of the proportioning valve, I decided to make all new hard lines.

Brake hoses can be found on ebay. Ebay seller “goodbrakes” sells them under the banner “Brake hoses unlimited”. He is very knowledgeable and his products are top notch. He knew that the brake lines wouldn’t fit the stock hoses and offer to make “conversion hoses” for me. Conversion hoses would bolt to the caliper, but have the drum brake size fitting on the hard line side. If I wasn’t going to run new lines, I would have taken him up on the offer.

The 69 spindles bolted up to my 68 without a problem. However, drum brake wheels do not fit a disk brake hub. The bolt pattern is the same, but the hub diameter is larger on the disk. A disk brake wheel is needed with a larger hole in the center to accommodate the disk. I was able to purchase a set of 5 of these wheels from Unique Auto Parts in Orlando FL. They are very knowledgeable and are very fair with their prices. The wheels were in decent cosmetic shape, needing sanding and painting, but most importantly, they were straight.

Once the plumbing was completed, I filled up the master with brake fluid. Then I watched most of it dribble out the bleeder. I had a defective new master and had to replace it. Masters are less than 20 bucks and don’t even need a core.

Lessons:
Disk brakes are far superior to drum brakes. After a break in period, I tested them in a deceleration lane (with no one behind me). Forcefully applying the brakes slowed the car down impressively fast. This probably marked the first time I’ve ever grinned from braking. If I were to try the same maneuver with the car in its drum configuration, I would have locked the wheels.

Know your limitations. If you don’t have lots of time, space and mechanical ability, this isn’t the job for you. Brakes are important. This took about a week of work to fiddle with parts, swap items, fabricate new lines, bleed lines, etc.. This doesn’t include time to buy new parts or have them delivered. This job probably can’t be done in a weekend. My car was off the road for just over a month.

Plan ahead. Hoses for these cars, especially disk brake hoses are almost non-existent. Thankfully Brake hoses unlimited is out there custom making them. You will not find these at your local car part store. Many items can be purchased around the corner. As I’ve mentioned, master cylinders are common. So are wheel bearings. Some items like an anti-rattle clip are harder to come by (hint, Napa has them). But even disk brake pads were special order. Order your parts so that you won’t be waiting on them. Nothing sucks like wasting a day off because you don’t have the parts to get the job done.

Deal locally if you can. I spend over 100 dollars on shipping parts from half way across the country. Unique auto parts was a 2 hour drive and would have had everything I needed.

Get everything from the donor car that you can. Although the booster didn’t work out, the other items did and it paid off to have as much from the same car as I could. The master was still hooked up to the proportioning valve, and the spindles had the rotors, calipers, hoses and some of the hard line still attached. Even though the lines from the master were crushed, I could see where they went to and was able to reuse all the fittings when I made new lines.

Get the shop manual. I buy this every time I buy an old car. It’s the best 40 bucks you’ll spend.

Do your homework. If I had seen a 69 in person before buying the parts, I would have seen that the booster wouldn’t have worked. Perhaps an interchange manual needs to be my next purchase.

Finally, when it gets frustrating, take a break. Sometimes its better to call it a night and reevaluate the problem in the morning. This conversion is worth the headache. The car is much safer and more fun to drive. Once you drive it with the new brakes, you’ll think you were crazy for driving it the way it was before.

Hope some of this helps.. Thanks for reading.