Part 7: Whoa There, Son-Valiant Gets New Brakes

Here you can see the difference in the pre-'73 (lower) and the post-'72lower ball joints.

With the lower ball joint attached to the spindle, connect it to thelower control arm and install the new nuts and cotter pins. You willneed different nuts and bolts to mount the steering arm to the spindlebecause the drum pieces are smaller.

The supplied rotor already has the bearing races installed, but beforeyou install the bearings and seal, clean everything with brake cleaner.

After you have properly packed the bearings and installed the innerseal, place the rotor over the spindle and tighten the nut to 90 in/lb.Then loosen it. Now tighten the nut just until there is no play in thebearing (the Chrysler Chassis service manual says tighten finger tight).When you have the nut appropriately tightened, install the tin nut cagebefore you install the cotter pin. Herein lies the problem: The nut cagefrom the drum-brake spindle is smaller than the one on the disk spindle.We happened to find two that fit in a bucket of miscellaneous items.

Next, slide the inner brake pad in place so it rests against the rotorand is supported by the caliper bracket. With the outer brake padinstalled in the caliper, slide the caliper over the rotor.

Mopar calipers are held in place with these spring clips. The largerpiece is installed first, followed by the smaller one. One bolt holdsboth clips to the caliper bracket.

For the installation of our new front brake lines, we contacted RightStuff Detailing of Columbus, Ohio, and acquired new brake lines.Tweaking the hard lines is required since this is a custom installation.

The new master cylinder from Master Power comes with a bracket to mount the supplied disk/drum equalizer block.

We wanted the install to have a nearly-stock appearance (it is hard to see in this picture), but we opted to mount the block on the framerail.