1952-59 Ford 56 Fairlane front disc brake question

In an attempt to do a disk swap for my 55 Customline, I snagged a set (free, luckily) of spindles off a 73 LTD and much to my delight they were a direct bolt on. The upper and lower ball joints are exactly right and the tie rod ends were even close!!! Now for the bad.....

Apparently Ford, for whatever reason, in 1973 only, changed the normal p***enger car bolt pattern from 5 x 4.5" to the larger 5 x 5" pattern!!!!! As I was working for NAPA at the time, I grabbed the brake catalog and discovered this. The major problem with this is (other than the obvious bolt pattern issue) is that the center hub of the 73 rotor is too large to fit a standard Ford steel rim and doesn't leave enough room to re-drill it for a smaller pattern either.

It's good to hear that the 72 is a direct bolt on. I currently have a complete Maverick set up with new rotors, pads, bearings etc that a friend desperately wants for his 72 Sprint project so I may look into finding either a 72 or 74-newer and go that route!!!

 

Thanks for the pictures! I'm probably gonna give the 70 Mustang spindles a shot.

 

AnyoldFord thats only on the big block cars, i got a pair like that. just have to get them from a small block car.

 

old lady's mad.....are you sure? The 73 LTD that my spindles came from had a 351W/C4 and it was factory. I helped pull the car out of the original owners barn then helped pull the drivetrain for a buddies 75 F100 that needed a new motor.

I'm gonna look around for some early 70's LTD spindles again and see if I can find anything instead of doing the whole Maverick re-tapering for the lower ball joints trick.

 

i got torino spindles on mine the bottom hole is actually a little big. i made a thin shim to go in mine. i need to take them back off and grind down the bottom of the spindle to do it right. full size fords of that era were the same. and yes if you look up the brakes you will see the big block cars have larger diameter rotors also.