Mixing Brake Parts for the Better

Oh yeah, rear disc brakes are great. They decrease stopping distance. They work better in mud and water. And one other thing: They’re useless if you still have drums on the front. Now, we could chastise you for owning a vehicle so old that it has front drums but the reality of it is that we like old trucks. Yep, even better than all the new funky widget this and antilock that. We’re pretty confident that we can tell when the wheels are skidding without the need for a vibrating, spongy brake pedal and flashing ABS lights.

So how do you put discs on the front of this older iron? Our ’71 Bronco had drums all the way around. The brakes worked as well as drums can, and water runs turned the pedal into a switch that merely lights up the brake lights. We called Wild Horses Four Wheel Drive to find out how to get some better stoppers on our steed. Among other early Bronco parts the company has a complete bolt-on kit to put discs on the front of drum brake Broncos. The kit will fit the Dana 30 and 44 frontends.

If you want to search for the parts yourself you’ll need spindles, brake hoses, caliper mounting brackets, and calipers from a ’76 or earlier Chevy ½-ton. In the later years (post ’76) there was a different spindle so the parts don’t interchange. You’ll also need a dozen 3/8x1½ fine thread bolts and lock washers, as well as hubs and rotors from a ’76-’79 Ford.

Interestingly, this disc swap will work on early Dodges too. The ’69-’74 drum brake trucks can use most of these parts, in addition to Chevy stubs for an easier, cheaper upgrade than using all Dodge parts. It even keeps the 5-on-5-½ bolt pattern. We took our Wild Horses kit and our unstoppable stallion to Extreme Automotive for the install. Extreme specializes in early Broncos and can do everything from supplying hard-to-find parts to complete frame-off restorations. Check out how Joe Monroe and Sam Suhr homogenize the Chevy parts into our Bronco.