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September 22, 2012
Brake lines, wheel well details
Well, while I am waiting for a few other things to fall into place, I made some time to square away my Charger's brake lines.
My Charger originally had 10" manual drums on all 4 corners. Even when I was young and fairly reckless, those were barely adequate for safety (especially when you decide to use that 440!)
So as detailed some time ago in this blog, I upgraded the brakes to the large 12" rotor set up using the large Chrylser Cordoba rotors, and the required longer caliper mounting brackets. These parts are mounted to a pair of '73-'76 A-Body spindles.
As most folks know, converting to disc brakes, and doing right requires more than simply bolting on discs. I located the correct proportioning valve for a disc brake equipped '70 Charger, which thankfully was the same as the early '70's disc brake equipped Dodge Darts. In addition the master cylinder adn booster are different for disc brake cars. Since mine was a manual brake car before I needed to install the correct re-enforcement plate and brake linkage pieces inside too.
The using new bulk steel seamless brake line, and the proper double flaring tools, I created my new brake lines following the original contours as closely as possible.I even transferred the factory spiral armor to the new lines. I used new fittings where ever the old ones were chewed up. Then put it all together.
In order to help me know where to put the lines going to the master cylinder I temporarily mounted an un-restored but correct master cylinder and booster set-up I got from a '69 Charger with disc brakes years ago.
Here are some pictures of the project.
One thing I did while I was working on this area of the car is replaced the weatherstripping inside the front and rear wheel well ares, added some under body coating to the wheel wells.
Also after doing a lot of reading I discovered that the spindles were reverse-able left and right. Even though the 73-76 Dart I took the spindles from had the calipers on the front, there were some advantages to swapping the spindles and mounting the calipers on the rear. The main reason I chose to do this was that the rubber hoses I had bought fit better with the calipers on the rear, other things I read suggested that the extra clearance between the caliper and the sway bar and strut bars was a good thing.
So in these pictures everything is in its new position.
Driver's side
Passenger side...
Stay tuned, I have information that my front bumper may be returned to me soon, and my engine parts are at the machine shop being perfected, so check back soon for more!
Posted in 2004-present | Reassembly | body | suspension, brakes, tires, and wheels