Disc Brake Upgrade?

[CSPIDY]

Hello all,
New member here, long time admirer of thr 5 through 7 birds.
I am looking at purchasing a 57 without power brakes.
I am planning on adding power brakes to improve the stopping power.
My question is, will upgrading to disc brakes be worth the time and money and how will it affect the value of the car?
Dave

[TNcoupe]

My 55 I bought came with non power discs on the front and it seems to stop fairly well even with a 10.5" rotor or whatever size they are.

[Joe Johnston]

CSPIDY - Welcome to the 55-57 section of the VTCI Fourm. Always good to have another Little Bird owner on board. We have many knowledgeable owners who can help with any problem. Read the picture posting info below in the Forum How To section and feel free to join in.

I converted my 57 to disk brakes many years ago with a kit from CASCO and retained the 14" wheels. I bypassed the power booster at the time and stopping ability was much better than the stock drums. I recently had the original Midland booster rebuilt and connected to the front disks and the pedal effort is reduced over the manual arrangement. In my opinion the conversion is well worth the effort and would only increase the value of a driven car. The original Midland booster addition would be the easiest way to get power brakes to the front disks, but newer styles of boosters would probably be more effective, but also more difficult to install.

Several here would be interested in seeing a pictorial posted of your conversion in process so please consider posting pictures.

J

[CSPIDY]

Will do, Taking pictures will be the easy part.
So, just adding front disc brakes is a good enough upgrade to the 57 for drive ability?
Dual master cylinder included. But no need for a power booster?

[Joe Johnston]

Adding the original booster to the system reduced the pedal effort for me. You could make the conversion to manual front disks and after driving a while, then decide if you want to add the booster. The original Midland booster mounts on the inner fender, a line from the new dual master goes to it, and another line to the front "T" fitting. A vacuum line connects to the engine, bleed the system and its done.

[CSavaglio]

I did the Casco conversion on my '55. I went with it because it had a dual master, kept the stock spindles (uses adapter plates), and replaces the rear wheel cylinders so you don't have to mess around with a proportioning valve. The braided stainless lines from the master cylinder are a nice touch since I was able to relocate them to the opposite side of the steering column with the headers since they dump on the outside of the steering column.

I personally don't think the pedal effort is excessive at all on my non-power brake car and, realistically, doesn't feel much different than my newish pickup with 4 wheel discs. It's not nearly as hard a pedal as the factory 4 wheel non-power discs on my '69 Vette were.

As far as stopping power, I don't really think there's much of a difference between discs and properly maintained drums, but you do get less fade in town where you're using your brakes a lot....I noticed it right away after a few hard stops....the drums get spongy after that and the discs don't. They also stop straighter, but a lot of that can be remedied by adjusting the shoes with drums.

I kept the drums on my '56 Mercury which were the same size as the T-birds on a much heavier car. Once I'd gone through everything and had them adjusted properly, that thing would stand on it's nose, but after a stop or two like that, there was a very noticeable loss of stopping power.

Bottom line, you're paying for the reliability of stopping consistently and maybe a little more stopping power. Most of the old car's I've messed with had their drums out of adjustment. The nice thing is that discs don't need adjustments and are pretty much maintenance free until the pads/rotors wear out. I think a lot of people replace worn out or out of adjustment drums with the discs and notice a big improvement.

As far as the value, I think discs are accepted in most circles as something "needed" to drive the car regularly and it doesn't really hurt the value. I would keep the original parts so you can pass them on to the next owner. If they're want to return it to factory, they'll have everything to do it.

[Kneetoe]

Hi All,
Any recommendations for a front wheel disc conversion kit for my 56 T-Bird. Preferably that comes complete, no machining required and has good instructions?
Thanks!
John

[ICON 1956]

I did the front disc brakes conversion, I got the kit from Casco $1150.00. The instructions were clear to follow.
Before

After

[Kneetoe]

Ok thanks. I’ll check out CASCO
Certainly Look like decent discs!