57 Ford Disc Brake Installation


I originally wrote to Ford Motorsport, John Vermeersch answered that letter and had this to say. There are several ways to add disc brakes to your 57 Ford. The most effective way is to use 75-80 Granada-Monarch front brakes, spindles and all. The spindles will require modification to the tie rod and ball joint bores since the tapers differ from the 57 parts. Fatman Fabrications can do this work at a very reasonable cost, 704-545-0369. The Granada rotors measure 11 inches in diameter, a big improvement over the stock drums. The wheel bolt pattern remains the same. A stock Granada manual master cylinder will bolt onto the stock firewall location. Be sure to add a proportioning valve to set the balance between the front and rear brakes. At this point he said he would forward the letter to Super Ford as a general interest question.. I am replying to that with more information. As car guys are rather impatient to get the parts and get it going, I had found several sources that had good ideas, some the same, some not, before John had answered my questions.

Disc Brake Install


This is information about adding front disc brakes to an old Ford, 1957 to be exact. The first picture shows the items in boxes that I purchased, hoses, pads, calipers and more. I have a list of the brand names and part numbers of most of the pieces. Since I put this together I have found several more companies that have complete swap kits.

Boxes of brake parts

I have taken a series of pictures for this conversion. The first thing to do is to locate the wrecking yard parts.The items that can be used from a wrecked car include, 2 - 1975 to 1980 Ford Granada "spindles" (second picture - silver ) 2 - dust caps, 2 - outer bearing sets, 2 - wheel bearing nuts and washers, 2 - mounting brackets ( black object in third picture )plus the 2 mounting bolts, 2 - spacers and their 2 bolts that hold the caliper to the mounting bracket. This picture shows the Granada spindles in silver versus the original in black from the 57 Ford. On the 57 Ford, remove the dust cap, nut, outer bearings and pull the drum off the spindle. Remove the complete brake shoes, springs, hose and backing plate. Remove the shocks. Get an inside coil spring compressor, the coils are inside the frame which makes it hard to use the regular outside spring compressor. Compress springs, put a floor jack under the frame next to the lower ball joint and remove some pressure from the coil spring. Pull the cotter pins from both ball joint nuts, remove the two nuts that hold the joints in. Use a pickle fork ( tapered tool ) to pop the ball joints from their holes in the old spindle, lower jack a little and remove spindle. Put all the 57 brake parts aside as they can be swap meet parts now.

silver spindles, original black

Look at pic #2 and you will see that the 57 spindle ( black one ) is taller and the Granada location of the wheel and bearing shaft is higher on the spindle. What that means is that the Granada spindle will lower the 57 frame about 1-1.5 inches and if you cut the spring you can lower it more. I did not cut the spring as I wanted my front end a little stiffer for drag racing.

The third pic shows the spindles with a caliper mounting bracket in place. Once you have the spindles you can take the "57" lower ball joint and the steering arm joint to a machine shop and have them taper ream the spindles in the lower ball joint and the steering arm hole until the joints slide into the proper location. The depth that the ball joint stud goes into the spindle is the reason that the spindle needs to be taper reamed, I had the spindles reamed until the ball joint stud went as deep as the 1957 joints did. The upper ball joint hole does not need to be modified. With the spindles modified you can add the caliper mounting bracket with 2 bolts before you install them.

spindle with bracket

The coil spring seat has a groove in the bottom A arm that the end of the coil spring fits into and the upper has a rubber gasket that fits on top of the coil spring. Floor jack the bottom A arm up until the upper ball joint stud goes through the spindle, add nut. Next, the lower ball joint stud goes through the spindle and has some extra thread length I took up with the thick washers from the long wheel nuts for Crager Super Lite II wheels (I use the lugnuts with the open end so the wheel stud shows how many threads are from the end of the stud. I ordered these from  Summit Racing when I ordered the racing wheels. I am sure these are available from any auto store.)lugnuts with washersin order to use all the thread length to put the nut in the proper location to add a cotter pin through the nut body. The steering arm joint has to be screwed out of the adjusting bracket ( adjust the bracket til the thread count is the same on both ends ) to reach the spindle steering arm. Do not forget the proper size cotter pins. Three places to add nuts and cotter pins.

spindles installed

When you mount the calipers, the air bleed adjuster has to be pointing slightly upward and the hose mounts pointing slightly downward. The hose end that fits on the frame bracket has to be modified, the end for the old hose is round and fits the frame bracket.
brake hose

The new hose end has shoulders and will have to be filed down to almost round and then will fit good. If these (calipers) are mounted left on right side ( backwards ) the air bleed adjuster will be pointing slightly downward and the hose will be streched to the bottom of the spindle and will be mounted upward and will be almost touching the lower A arm. If you look just forward of the yellow jack and the steering arm you will see a black hose pointing downward, this is backwards!!! I also changed to a dual master cylinder, which mounts in the stock location with only 2 bolts required. I made the pushrod about 1/4" longer for a slightly higher pedal. The pedal to pushrod ratio is about 6:1. This pic shows the entire assembly in place

calipers and rotors installed

A new picture of the master cylinder used,

master cylinder installed

as you can see it bolted right into the stock space ( more or less ). This is the master cylinder in the parts list. I used the stock distribution block and just procured new hard line in the appropriate size ( 1 was 1/8 inch, 1 was 3/16 inch ) and length. I bent the hard line with a tubing bender into a shape that would fit the distribution block's location. You need 2 pieces of new hard line,

master cylinder hard lines

one goes from the front of the master cylinder to the rear brake distribution block ( small reservoir ), the next from the side of the master cylinder to the front block for the disc brakes.




The list of parts and manufacturers, if I have left something out let me know. The parts are from a 1975 to 1980 Ford Granada and maybe other Fords.

1 - Autospecialty # M-81023 dual master cylinder
2 - 1975 - 1980 spindles
2 - caliper mounting bracket + 2 mounting bolts
2 - Wagner # CR83270 calipers
2 - Wagner # BD60431 brake rotor
1 - Wagner # F73239S brake hardware
1 - Wagner # F73237 brake hardware
2 - Parts Master #PT6815 rear grease seal
2 - Parts Master #PT A-12 front bearing
2 - Parts Master # Pt A-13 rear bearing
1 - Wagner # SH1107-7 disk brake shims - did not use
1 - Wagner # MX7027R disc brake pads
2 - Wagner # F80013 brake hose - had to modify one end
2 - grease caps for rotor - anywhere
2 - bearing nuts - anywhere
2 - bearing washers ( behind nut ) - anywhere

Disc Brake Sources


Complete disc brake kits for older Fords, also dropped spindles
D.C. Enterprises, 564 Strauss Dr., Thousand Oaks, CA 91320
Phone 1-805-498-4420 email - dcent@anacapa.net

Magazine Article
Rod & Custom magazine March 1997 by Jon Gobetti with Dick of DC Enterprises

Crites Restoration Products
13155 USR 23, Ashville, OH 43103
Ph 740-983-4777 Fax 740-983-9691
Crites Restoration

MP Brakes - 254-1 Rolling Hills Rd - Mooresville, NC 28115
1-704-665-8866 email - mpbrake@aol.com

Wrecking yards - spindles, caliper mounting bracket, outer bearing+nut+washer+grease cap, brake hardware

Local auto parts stores also have all the parts new or rebuilt

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