C-Body Disc-Brake Conversion

With any project, making sure you have all of the parts before you start is a good idea. Here is our kit from Stainless Steel Brakes for the C-monster, complete with everything but hand tools and elbow grease.

Let’s face it, they may cumbersome, they may have the road feel of a Moon Pie on a sunny day, and they may require a large quantity of black gold to make it down the road, but big ’ol American-made C-Bodies are just plain cool. You can get in them, relax, and drive for hours in comfort. They sport most of Highland Park’s biggest power plants, yet to the insurance companies, it’s just a luxury car (just don’t let ’em in on the 14-71 blower you just installed). The term “land barge” is aptly applied to just about any of the musclecar-era C-Bodies.

The problem with them is this: You go cruisin’ to your local hot spot in your 440 Magnum-equipped Polara, and some punk kid pulls along side of you at the stoplight in a worked import that his parents bought for him. With RB power at your toe tips, you know you can take him…the light turns green, and instantly the kid goes up in a cloud of smoke. You, on the other hand, just kinda move forward quickly in the Mopar-yacht, half laughing at the kid. Then, out of the blue, another car pulls out of a side street into your lane. With four tons of Detroit iron on the line, you push on the brake pedal hard and pray even harder that you stop. Let’s face it, drum brakes essentially work, but in the real world of today’s hurry-up-and-wait pace of life, an upgrade is a necessity, especially since the parts now exist to do the conversion easily.

Stainless Steel Brakes has been making quality brake parts for the aftermarket industry for years, and with their help, we decided to upgrade a C-monster for stopping.

Corvette Fever's tech guy Andy Bolig provided his 383-powered ’66 Monoco for the project, proving that not all Chevy guys are useless. The overall installation of the Stainless Steel Brakes’ disc-conversion kit was basically a bolt-on project. Just remember that you may want to check on the stainless flex-line, and a banjo-type fitting at the spindle makes the job a little nicer. Also, you will lose your lefthand threads since the rotors are all set up for right-hand lug nuts.

We put our very large '66 Monaco on the heavy-duty Stinger four-post car lift to make this job a little easier. Jack stands are a must if you do this in the driveway at home. Once supported, drain the land yacht's brake fluid before beginning.	With the front wheels removed, we could see that the stock drums were in good shape, but once they get warm, it doesn't matter how they look. Disc brakes make sense because when the drums get hot, they fade (which means that you don't stop so good). Now remove the drums by taking off the dust cover (arrow) and then removing the cotter pin. Next, unscrew the spindle nut and remove the drum and bearing housing off of the spindle.	The only thing we noticed during the disassembly was that the lower control arm is under pressure from the torsion bar. They don't mention this in the instructions. We decided to put a bottle jack under the control arm to support it. Better safe than sorry.
With the lower control arm supported, disconnect the flexible brake line where it connects to the metal line, and then remove the four bolts (arrows) that hold the brake backing plate to the spindle and remove the plate.	We see here that the lower control arm has indeed separated from the spindle with the removal of the four bolts, hence the need for the bottle jack. With the drum and backing plate out of the way, take some brake cleaner and rags and remove that 30-plus years accumulation of grunge that was just revealed.	Once the spindle surface and area is clean, install the caliper brackets on the proper sides using the supplied bolts. In this case, the calipers are towards the front of the car. Put the top two bolts in finger-tight from the backside.
Now use the bottle jack to lift up the lower control arm far enough to push the bottom bolts (arrows) through both pieces. A hammer is not required; if the holes are not lined up, and you try to beat it through, the result will be stripped and damaged threads on the bolt. If needed, use a line-up bar to help you. At this point, slide the rotor spacer on the spindle shaft.	We are showing you this picture because we have seen people put the rotor on first and then fill the empty space between the bearings and hope it gets in the bearings. Don't do this! It may be a little messy, but if a mechanical bearing packer isn't around, cup your hand and fill it with grease. Now force the edge of the bearing into the grease until grease comes out the top edge. Any wheel bearing not properly greased will fail quickly; if you don't have time to do it right the first time, you sure don't have time to do it twice.	Since the SSB rotors already have the new bearing races installed, just set your new inside bearing in the race and then place the new seal in position and lightly tap it in place.
With the rotor on the spindle, pack the other bearing the same as the first one and place it over the spindle and into the rotor. Now put the washer and nut on the spindle and torque to 17-25 ft-lbs while spinning the rotor. Back off the nut after this (which set the bearing into place) and re-torque the nut to 10-15 ft-lbs. Now lock the nut in place with the new cotter pin supplied. Don't forget the new dust cover.	With the rotor installed, we decided to check out our run with a magnetically-mounted dial caliper. The quality of the kit was evident with only 3/1000 run-out.	The only problem we had with this kit is with the supplied flex-hose. As we began routing the lines, we couldn't mount the caliper on the bracket because the hose fitting hit the spindle mount and subsequently the holes on the caliper would not line up with the holes on the bracket. While this could be remedied by taking a hand grinder and removing a small amount of metal from the arm, we opted to call Stainless Steel Brakes and they suggested using their braided flex line.
When we received the braided line, we still encountered the problem of the hose against the spindle, though not as significantly as before. If a banjo-type fitting were utilized on the stainless line, it would eliminate the problem altogether.	Here you can see the difference in the two lines. Where the wrench fits the rubber line is where the line hit the spindle. With the smaller braided line there is more clearance. Still, a banjo fitting on the stainless line is probably the best way to go.	On to the master cylinder. Looking at the pot on the firewall, you gotta wonder how this little thing ever stopped our large-by-huge driver.
With the help of our trusty Corvette-weaned assistant ("Hey, it's your car, YOU climb under the dash"), we removed the arm from the brake pedal that connects to the master cylinder.	With the old cylinder removed, get the brake cleaner ready, because you will need to reuse the retainer clip, spring, dust boot, and arm on the new SSB master cylinder.	There are no holes to fasten the boot assembly to the new master cylinder, but the spring and clip will hold it in place.
After the master cylinder has been "bench bled" (if you don't know how, read the instructions and call someone who has done it), it can be installed on the firewall and reattached to the pedal. The lines can also be reconnected at this time. Under the master cylinder (arrow), you can see that we fastened our proportioning valve to the frame next to the factory distribution block (which needs to be retained).	Remember when you attach the brake lines from the cylinder to the brake system, the front reservoir is for the REAR brakes and the back reservoir is for the FRONT brakes.	With all of the wheels bled of air, we buttoned up our master cylinder and tried out the new stoppers. Aye, aye, Captain.