50 Chevy brake upgrades (or not)???

I decided to retain the original IFS, steering, etc on my 50 and not go with a MII kit. I went to order a disc brake kit from Speedway that has everything you need for the disc brake conversion for the original IFS. I got to the website to order it and a big red warning popped up and said NOT FOR USE ON 49-54 CHEVYROLET YOU MUST USE FLAT STEERING ARMS WITH THIS KIT. which seemed stupid as hell to me because they market the kit for 49-54 Chevys?? So now I'm really confused!! I'm dropping the front with dropped uprights and modified steering arms from National Chevy, and may end up notching the shock tower and bagging the front down the road. Should I just rebuild the original front drum brakes? I really thought the Speedway kit was slick, but it sounds like I can't use it on my car??? Anybody know of a way to upgrade brakes that will work with OEM steering arms and possibly bags down the road? Somebody on here mentioned swapping for whatever came in the 52 Chevys I think, what was different on them? Geez, just the uprights and the arms were like $500 that's half what I paid for the heap. This is going to be expensive!!

 

51-54 chevys have the modern "bendix" type self energizing brakes, they work better than the 49-50 "huck" brakes. I'd look into swapping for them if you can.

 

ECI makes a disc brake kit for the original spindles

 

Squirrel speaks good words... When I still had the OEM front end on my 52, I could slide all 4 tires at any given moment. I had rebuilt the drums and all... put a dual chambered master on it and they worked great.

If you want disc brakes, ECI makes a nice kit. Edit: oops, i guess I type slow!

Also, the Speedway kit is for using the 49-54 Chevy spindles and all on earlier cars like hiboys, etc.

 

they make a after makrket power master cylender kit for drum/drum its like 299 and thats what im going to run on my 59 i want to keep the drums on there till i can afford to do all the brakes to disc so if you want to do drums then i would do the power master cylender upgrade it works really good ...

 

Thanks you guys, the ECI kit (basic kit) looks like the way I'll go. As far as a master cylinder setup, are the swing pedal setups worth the huge amount of cash they are asking for them or is there a better way?

 

I've never needed power with the bendix drum brakes, and I've put a lot of miles on cars/trucks with them..

 

The swing pedal setups allow you to use a larger MC if you want power brakes. The under the floor units looks cleaner, but can be a pain to install and service. You can run disc brakes off of the stock MC too.

Bryan

 

There is a seller named fatrodder on EBAY who sells a under the floor unit for like $175, the one I was looking at from Waltons is $400!! god who's buying those!? Anybody know anything about the underfloor units?

 

Regarding ECI's basic kit vs. the complete kit: if you add up all the parts to make a basic kit "complete" at the local chain/franchise discount auto parts counter (assuming you have junkyard cores for the calipers), it will be a wash. I learned that the hard way.

I agree that power brakes are not necessary, but you gotta kinda brake from your hip instead of your ankle. I used the swing pedal assy. from a 56 Chevy car and it works real good. You can adapt pretty much anything, but it will go easier on you if you use a pedal assy designed for the type of master (power vs. non-power) you are using. (This is because the ratio is slightly different.)

 

i recently did the ECI kit on my 51. i used a non-power aftermarket under floor master cylinder, i think it came from the fatrodder fellow on ebay, i got a good deal cause it was returned from a flooded retailer, but no damage. seems to work well.

FWIW i got the ECI kit from chevs of the 40's, i chose them because their kit came with the correct brake hoses for the swap, for about the same money as the kit directly from ECI, had a bit of a problem though, the hoses each had some stray rubber in them from the manufacturing process, at first i had a rock hard pedal with no front brakes, i proceeded to bed in the new brakes, after a few good hard stops it devolped a severe pull to one side that didn't go away, after a few rounds of re-bleeding them, i pulled the hose off the non functioning side to find a big ol rubber goober in there!

also, re: the under floor pedal/master setup, it works fine, but i found one problem that bugged me, the pedal arm isn't cut properly to match the arc the pedal swings at, so as you go through the pedal travel, it requires a longer hole in the floor than it should, it probably is off 3/4" or more.