Thread: early Chevy spindle disc brake conversion

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I have recently got a 1927 T bucket rolling chassis with fiberglass tub custom chassis I think. the front axle is a 6'' drop tube axle with the early Chevy car spindles on it. there is hubs on the spindles with wheels mounted on, but no brake set up on there at all. I need brakes up front. I was thinking of trying to put disc brakes on it, but don't exactly know what to do. I looked on Speedway and they have quit a few disc brake combinations to offer, BUT they say the spindles have to be machined. I was going to use the 1973 style Chevy 1/2 ton caliper and rotor set up, but then I need to machine the spindles. I can get used or new rotor and caliper cheap, but I would like to know what to do before spending the money. maybe there is a better way. can anyone help me?

Speedway used to offer an exchange program for machining 49-54 spindles so that you could run disc brakes on them.......maybe they still do........price used to be $ 75 for the pair. They turn down the seal and bearing areas so the proper sized ones and be used. It is just as cheap though to buy the new forged spindles they sell that are already made to the correct size, by the time you factor in shipping your old ones in, etc. Once you buy those new ones you can run any one of the many disc brake setups they, and others, sell.

I would caution you about running too heavy of a rotor, like the pickup ones you mention, on the front of your light T. They can create some handling problems like death wobble due to the heavy rotating mass. I talk from experience on that one, we used GTO rotors and calipers when we first built my Son Dons T bucket.........Mickey Lauria from Total Performance warned us not to for the reason I mentioned. He was right, the front end had some quirky driving issues.

So we pulled everything and bought new Speedway spindles and a complete Wilwood brake setup. The handling issues were pretty much resolved, but the brakes threw tons of brake dust all over the car and the rotors got scored very soon after installing them. Speedway stepped up to the plate and gave us new rotors, different pads, and a proportioning valve. We installed them and no more dust, but they squeal like mad. We have spent hours, shimming, checking, etc, and they still make noise. Even lots of phone conversations with Wilwood haven't helped. When we get back from Turkey Run we are going to pull it all apart again, change to a different composition on the pads, and try again to fix it.

Just thought I would try to save you some headaches and money.

Don

In line with Pops comments about being able to buy repop spindles already machined for the available disc kits, since those were/are commonly used for T style cars, it's possible that's what you already have. If it were me, I'd get the machined dimensions from the Speedway tech guys and figure out if what I had were stock or already modified spindles.

Jawman,
The Mr Roadster modified spindles are part # 91032100 at Speedway. You can purchase the spindles alone for $169 or the Spindle kit with Kingpins for $219. These worked great on my car and are forged for strength. The Willwood disc brake set up stops my car great and like pops said squeals like a pig.
I have called Speedway and again like pops said they sent me out all new rotors and pads. No brake dust and rotors getting eaten now, BUT the squeal is more than I can take. Another call to Speedway showed their frustration with the product and they advised me to call Wilwood. Wilwood has a few different sets of various hardness pads for this set up so perhaps a soft pad would end my problem. I would put a new set of pads on once a month not to have this sqeal!

After the Turkey rod run I plan on really looking at this again and may even change brake set ups. We shall see.

Good advice to check your spindles first as you may have modified chevy spindles already. Good Luck, Don Jr.