Quick question. I was just wondering if anybody knows of a quick way to do front disk conversion to a 1950 Chevy fleetline, from any later model Chevy's that bolt on with spindles. I'm trying to do it on a budget, new baby on the way. any help is much appreciated. -sorry if this post is not in the right thread, I'm still new to the site.
nope, you need a caliper bracket at the very least. The 50 design is two design generations before there were disk brakes on anything, so there isn't anything even close to bolting on as-is. But the 51-54 Bendix type drum brakes do bolt on on, and they are considerably better than the Huck type brakes you have now. If you can find all the parts that someone is getting rid of when they go to disk brakes, you could do it pretty cheap maybe. Although the rear brakes are not so easy, as you also need to change the housing...which you might want to do anyways when you finally decide to get a newer transmission...it snowballs
51-54 brake conversion is easy. Find a donor and get the hubs, drums, backing plates - I just sold a set on eBay for $100. The 50 has spacers behind the backing plate, save those, you'll need them... it's a very basic 4-bolt swap. Then you can buy everything else new for another $150 or so at most any chain, or via Rock Auto - Shoes interchange 51-58 and fit a ton of cars, they're like $20 Napa had the hoses in stock under $10 each Wheel cylinders interchange with a few other vehicles including certain mid-70s Jeeps, I've seen them new as little as $10 (Rock Auto); in a chain store about $30 a side. And because Chevy used the same brakes and drums on the rear up to '68, hardware and adjusters for those will work fine. They won't be discs, but well-adjusted drum brakes will grab hard enough to lock the wheels up just the same - Be aware that to convert the rear brakes over to match requires a rearend swap; the backing plate swap doesn't work because they don't mount the same. If your car is a manual trans car, going to a 51-54 Powerglide car rearend gets you a better axle ratio, and they can usually be had pretty cheap and bolt directly in, so it's worth thinking about. One guy can swap the rear out with the car on jackstands and you do not need to drop the leaf springs to do it.
I wouldn't waste my time exchanging shitty brakes for crummy brakes. go with discs. ""but well-adjusted drum brakes will grab hard enough to lock the wheels up just the same"" locking up the brakes is not the fastest way to stop. good way to lose control though. I bought a kit from a company that is no longer in business. that is how I would go again. a mix and match of rotors, calipers, bearings and races. a custom bracket for the calipers, and a machined spacer to match the bearing to the spindle. you will need to change out the master cylinder as well. chassis engineering makes a new bracket using the original pedal that mounts a 68-72 Mustang disc/drum master cylinder. chevsofthe40s.com is always a good place to start when doing anything to these cars.
I did the drum to disk swap on my 55 Olds using the kit from Scarebird, it will only take a few hours and other than what comes with the kit everything else can be bought at your local parts house. You will use your original spindles, and I was able to do it all for around $300 bucks and some change.
What year did 'vette go to discs? Thru '62, they used the same spindles as the Chev cars from at least '49 up thru '54.
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