1961 Convertable Front Disc Brake Conversion

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  • #1036

    Stan
    Participant

    I know I can go to a later model Continental and find these parts or I can get on EBay and pay $800 Plus for the mods.

    Does anyone know if something like a crown Victoria will work? Maybe another vehicle that has the parts I’m looking for a

    direct bolt on upgrade. It seems a shame to have to paid $1600 for front disc brakes on  61 Lincoln.

    Cheers!

    Stan

    #1040

    Jeremy
    Keymaster

    Stan,

    The easiest swap is 65 – 69 Lincoln spindles, rotors, calipers, master cylinder, etc. It’s the route I would go if I were converting your car.  The factory discs have big 4 piston Kelsey Hayes calipers and stops one of these cars with ease.  If you go that route get the 66 – 69 booster, master cylinder, and proportioning valve.  The 65 still used a single reservoir master cylinder.

    GearHead Engineering offers a kit for $845 that includes everything.  abspowerbrake.com also offers a kit but the price is not listed on their website.  I have no experience with this kit but I’ve heard through the grapevine that it might not stop as well as using factory pieces since it uses a smaller floating caliper based off GM parts.

    You might be able to swap something from a later model car, but I doubt anything as new a a Crown Victoria would work.  Perhaps an early 70s Lincoln or large Mercury setup would work.  I know I used 69 Country Squire discs on a 64 Galaxie I owned years ago.

    Good luck!

    Resistance is Futile.

    #1071

    kerek
    Participant

    I NEED HELP!!!

    Ive installed a CPP complete break kit and i am having problems with it not stopping quick enough. Has anyone ever used this break kit??? If so please write, i have quite a few questions. I have checked everything on it and everthing seems to be right and still cannot get them to work properly…. The original drum breaks stopped better than these.

     

    #1078

    Jeremy
    Keymaster

    @kerak

    I’ve no personal experience with the CPP kit, but I’d suggest contacting CPP and seeing what they say about it.  You have to consider that these cars weigh between 5 and 6,000 pounds so they aren’t going to stop on a dime.   If it’s really not stopping well there’s obviously a problem somewhere that needs to be sorted out.

    Are you sure both the front and rear brakes are functioning properly?  Did you install a new dual master cylinder, power booster, and proportioning valve with your kit?

    Good luck!

    Resistance is Futile.

    #1646

    Bob Hughes
    Participant

    I converted my 64 to front disc brakes.   A company called  Scarebird Classic Brakes  will send you the bracket and a list of off the shelf calipers and rotors you can pick up from your local jobber  or on line..  Mine were from a  90 GMC 1/2 ton pickup .  To get this done I sent him my spindles and he made the brackets using my spindles.  Now you can order just the bracket. They were located in Washington State but he said he was moving to Arizona. That was in late 2016. A cheap upgrade.

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