Boss T/A front brake upgrade (Lincoln/Tbird calipers) thread

Rusty67

Dirt-Old 20+Year Member
Dec 3, 2002
3,749
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Seattle area, WA
Ok, so I've been picking bnickles brain about this for a few days now and my madness has spread. I've started annoying other forums members as well and I think it is time I started a thread about this so everyone can see and/or contribute to this.

I want to discuss using the 65-66 Thunderbird/65-69 Lincoln Continental 4 piston K/H calipers on our Mustangs.

What I've got so far:

What you need:
Calipers                                Rotor (with or without integrated hub)
Drum Spindles (for your car)    Drum Hub (for you spindle, optional)
Pads (D1 type)                      Special Ford D0ZX type mounting bracket
Dust shields wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Where to get it:
Calipers - junkyard, ebay, swapmeet, rebuilt ones from a parts store
All of these vehicles should have the same calipers which will make great donors for your project
FORD
1966 - 1967 LTD          1966 - 1967 COUNTRY SQUIRE            1965 - 1967 GALAXIE
1966 - 1967 CUSTOM   1965 - 1967 THUNDERBIRD

LINCOLN
1965 - 1969 CONTINENTAL

MERCURY
1967 BROUGHAM                    1966 - 1967 MONTCLAIR         1967 MARQUIS
1966 - 1967 COMMUTER          1966 - 1967 MONTEREY

Drum Spindles - junkyard, ebay, swapmeet, new ones from a parts supplier (NPD)
Drum hub - junkyard, ebay, swapmeet, new ones from a parts supplier (NPD)
Rotor
Drum hub type:
FORD
1968 COUNTRY SEDAN             1968 - 1969 GALAXIE 500    1968 - 1969 LTD
1968 COUNTRY SQUIRE            1968 CUSTOM 500
1968 CUSTOM                         1968 THUNDERBIRD

LINCOLN
1968 - 1969 MARK III

MERCURY
1968 COMMUTER          1968 MONTEREY       1968 MONTCLAIR

Rotor integrated hub type:
1972 Thunderbird - Napa auto, rockauto.com junkyard (I have not verified that this WILL work, it is theory)

Pads:
RAYBESTOS PN: PGD1 If you junkyard a set you can have those re-lined with better linings; these are D1 type pads, check with local brake supply places, not the name brand parts houses

Raybestos Brake Pad Shims P/N: DS8000

Dust shield - I'm not really sure on this, I was going to reuse my 67 K/H dust shields

Caliper Bracket:
Cobra Automotive
http://www.cobraautomotive.com/cobra_cat.pdf

Speed Parts International
http://www.speedpartsinternational.com/transambrakekit.html

So I think that covers a brake down of what you need and where to get it.

I'd like to say that as of today, Cobra Automotive charges over 400 dollars for those brackets. I don't know what Speed Parts charges as they havn't got back to me yet but I'm sure its expensive.

At this point I'm considering making my own bracket once I get the calipers and an some drum hubs.

Ok, lets hear from some of you fabrication experts ;-)

(Credit for most of the information in this thread that I've posted so far goes to bnickle, thanks for leting me pester you constantly about this)
 
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I plan on doing the same thing. I have found the calipers on a t-bird and a set of big bearing spindles off a torino. but I will probably just bite the bullet after the holidays and buy the hubs, rotors,studs and brackets from cobra automotive. I have been open tracking my fast back on granada brakes for almost a decade. I need to upgrade. chris
 
save yourself a ton of money and effort and use:

65-69 mustang V8 drum brake spindles

69 lincoln four piston calipers

68 tbird rotors

and caliper brackets from cobra automotive.

this is the least expensive way to go unless you get the compete system from a 68 Tbird(spindles out) and have ball joint spacers made to fit them to your mustang ball joints.
 
Would using the Tbird spindles change the track width of the car or are they the same as the Mustang spindles ?

i think the track width changes slightly, about 1/2 - 3/4". as for the spindle where the brake rotor rides, it is the same as the V8 mustang which is why the rotors interchange, but the ball joint openings are larger on the Tbird.
 
i think the track width changes slightly, about 1/2 - 3/4". as for the spindle where the brake rotor rides, it is the same as the V8 mustang which is why the rotors interchange, but the ball joint openings are larger on the Tbird.



i wonder why the boss T/A teams didn't do this back in the day.

i was really hoping Degins would make his dropped spindles so that we could use these brakes with them but i guess he's decided not do this. maybe he will offer a bracket specific to his spindle to do this, we'll see, i guess.
 
i wonder why the boss T/A teams didn't do this back in the day.

acutally they did. ford made a kit to allow the use of the lincoln calipers and Tbird rotors on the front, and then you took the stock front brakes and used them on the rear. this way everything was done with factory parts. and since the kit was available over the counter at the ford dealer, one could, if they knew what parts to order, get the kit and put it on their mustang.
 
acutally they did. ford made a kit to allow the use of the lincoln calipers and Tbird rotors on the front, and then you took the stock front brakes and used them on the rear. this way everything was done with factory parts. and since the kit was available over the counter at the ford dealer, one could, if they knew what parts to order, get the kit and put it on their mustang.

no, i meant the T-bird spindles. i'm well aware of the DOZX bracket and associated parts. the rear kit also included special axles with the correct spacing to mount the front caliper and rotors on the back.
 
my bad. i am sure that a low buck team might have used the Tbird spindles, but i cannot prove that. i do know that there was a company in sacramento that made the needed spindle bushings just for the lincoln or tbird spindle swap to a mustang. unfortunately they are long out of business.
 
acutally they did. ford made a kit to allow the use of the lincoln calipers and Tbird rotors on the front, and then you took the stock front brakes and used them on the rear. this way everything was done with factory parts. and since the kit was available over the counter at the ford dealer, one could, if they knew what parts to order, get the kit and put it on their mustang.

Go to the BOSS-302 Chassis Modifacation book. All the information is in there. Then all you should need to do is call NAPA and buy most everything less the spindles and those should be fairly easy to aquire.
 
yes all the info is in the b0ss 302 chasis modification book. the spindles are the easy part. Its the caliper brackets that are the "non factory" part making them somthing that is a hard find. If you guys get a group buy on the brackets count me in. chris
 
I may be able to get a better price on these things then the emachineshop. My mom is the head aministrator at a machinist training school. I might be able to get this done as a special project or at a very heavily discounted rate.

In reality, I didn't want to talk about geting brackets made or group buys but I figured it would happen. I mainly wanted to concentrate on geting all the info for the swap out there. It would even be kewl to get an autocad drawing or some other type of diagram of the brackets onto the forums. I think this is one of those swaps that hasn't been gone into detail about and it would be good if it was that way more people could have an affordable/well perfoming big brake upgrade kit.
 
i don't even know anyone that has one of the brackets to get the drwaings from, nor do i have any of the parts to even get a rough estimate from. so far i have a set of stock 69 drum spindles and a set of original 69 disc brake hubs.

the drawback to this system is that it's really very heavy, though it still works quite well, even today.

one of these days if ever get rich, i'm going to buy me a bridgeport and build my own billet aluminum version of these calipers, don't see that happening anytime in the near or even nearly distant future though.
 
I have a Cad drawing I've been working on for putting late model Cobra brakes on my 66 coupe using a two piece 3/8" steel plate design. It's pretty much done but I wanted to have a set made of a cheaper material (ploycarbonate plastic) to check the fit and make adjustments. I have a friend of my parents who owns a machine shop, but he's so busy right now he can't fit my little project in :(
 
The 1968 Ford Full Size rotor (Raybestos 6008) is not a "drum hub type". It mounts, like all 60's Ford disc/hub assemblies, to the back of disc hubs, which are different from drum hubs.

An alternative is to use Wilwood rotors and aluminium hats in combination with drum hubs. A little more expensive (2 x $75 for the hats and 2 x $50 for the rotors), but significantly lighter. This is similar (or actually identical) to the Cobra Automotive kit.
 
This is the least expensive way to go unless you get the compete system from a 68 Tbird (spindles out), and have ball joint spacers made to fit them to your Mustang ball joints.

I am just starting to learn suspension, but this sounds like the way to go in my newbie-like opinion on the subject.

You are saying that 68 Bird spindles will fit our cars (with the exception of the ball joint size), correct?:shrug:

Then with the spindles adapted, you should be able to use all the factory hubs, rotors, brackets, calipers, etc...

You can't beat that.
Spacers for the joints should be no problem.
Who's to say that you can't just use the Bird ball joints bolted into our control arms???
Any comment on that idea?