Brakes Brake Conversion Drum To Disk

Been there and done that! With success!

Do the 87-88 T-Bird Turbo Coupe rear end swap!

Auto trans 87-88 Tbird Turbo Coupes come with 3.73 gears and manual Turbo Coupes come with 3.55 gears. Cost is $125-$300 for the rear axle. Add another $100-$200 or so to complete the brake upgrade.

I choose 3.55 since I do more highway driving. Both ratios have 10 5/16" disk brakes with vented rotors as standard equipment.

It takes 2 guys the first day to get the old rear end out and the new one bolted in place. It takes 1 guy another whole day to do the brakes.

You will need a several sets of fittings, I recommend that you get them from Matt90GT's website, http://home.comcast.net/~mjbobbitt/mustang/page5.html. Read Matt's instructions thoroughly, everything you need to know about the brakes is all there. You need to be patient and follow all the internal links, and there are many of them. You will need 2 fittings in the rear to adapt your old brake tubing to the TC disk brakes. The fittings go between the steel tube and the caliper brake hose. You will need another set of fittings to make a 2 port to 3 port adapter. To make life simpler, just buy the kits from Matt. You could piece them together, but it's not worth the time unless you work at an auto parts store with all the fittings ever made.

You will need to drill the quad shock mounting holes 2” below the holes drilled for the Turbo Coupe mounting points. The bolts are metric, so don’t loose them or the nuts. A 15/32” drill should be about the right size unless you have access to metric sized drill bits. Going without quad shocks is not an option.
When you install the axle assembly you will need to leave the bolts for the control arms only finger tight. Once the axle and all the control arms are in place, put jackstands under the rear axle and under the front A arms. Level the car as best you can while it is on the jackstands. Then and only then tighten down the control arm nuts and bolts to the factory specs. This assures that there is no preload to position the axle up or down, it is preloaded to normal driving height.

You will need a proportioning valve, Summit has one for $40 + shipping.
You will need a kit (FMS makes the part) to gut the stock proportioning valve, Summit also has that, about $10.


You will need a new master cylinder, see Matt's site and make you choice. I used a 94-95 Mustang master cylinder. Note that rebuilt 94-95 Mustang master cylinders do not come with a reservoir. That means a trip to the junkyard and some more money spent.

Your brake pedal may be very hard and almost impossible to lock up the brakes. I had to replace the front calipers with 73 mm calipers from a 91 Lincoln Mark 7 to get the braking performance up to par.

Bleeding the brakes will require 2 people and some coordinated effort. I don’t recommend using you wife or girlfriend to pump the pedal – they get offended when you yell at them. I used a homemade power brake bleeder constructed from a garden sprayer and some fittings from Home Depot. It cost about $25 and was worth every penny. See http://forums.stangnet.com/showthread.php?p=6143048 for details and pictures.

See http://www.mustangcentral.net/tech/brake.html for help with the emergency brake. The red words link to some very useful photos on how to modify the handle. The stock setup tends to lock up and not release properly.
All in all I have been very pleased with the results.

Turbo Coupe axle swap parts list:
87-88 T-Bird Turbo Coupe Rear axle
94-95 Mustang Master Cylinder with reservoir
Brake line Adapter fittings http://home.comcast.net/~mjbobbitt/mustang/page5.html.
3 line to 2 line brake fitting kit http://home.comcast.net/~mjbobbitt/mustang/page5.html..
Proportioning valve, Wildwood 260-8419 Summit or Jegs
Kit to gut the stock proportioning valve Ford Racing M-2450-A Summit or Jegs
Reuse stock brake booster – no changes needed with the parts in this list
73 mm front calipers from a 91 Lincoln Mark 7 (two calipers) local auto parts store
Emergency brake cable parts: Summit or Jegs or Late Model Restoration
79-92 Mustangs use: M-2809-A* Parking Brake Cable (need 2)
93 Mustangs: use 93 Cobra Ebrake cables.
All years use: M-2810-A* Parking Brake Cable (short cable that attaches to the parking brake handle)

I recommend that you use reman calipers and use the calipers from the Turbo Coupe axle for cores to return. The parking brake mechanism and the caliper slides tend to lockup and freeze

Identifying a Turbo Coupe rear axle:
1.) Measure the rotors - a TC disk brake uses 10 5/16" vented rotors.
2.) Measure the length of the quad shock mount arm and compare it to the mount on your existing stock axle. The TC quad shock mount arm is about 8" long if I remember correctly.
3.) Measure the distance between the axle flanges and compare it to stock. The TC rear axle assembly is 3/4" wider per side, or 1 1/2" wider for both sides.
Fixing the added axle length problem:
If the extra width is a problem for your wheel and tire combination, North Racecars makes some rather expensive brackets ($160 +) which allow you to use the stock axles. See http://northracecars.com/Brakes.html

5.0muscle said:

Sounds great, and what is really cool is that about 4 years ago I pulled an SC disc rear end after I heard they could possibly be used, and I think I already have the correct brake cables as well, given to me by a friend. Next question though, once this is done if I ever want to go to a 4 lug brake kit from Baer or Brembo or something like that will that just be a straight swap or do you know what would be needed? Because eventually I would like to go to aftermarket calipers and rotors and all that.

Click to expand...

I have no experience beyond what I have documented here as to interchangeability with aftermarket parts from Baer or Brembo . Someone else will need to provide information in that area.

SSBC has a bolt in rear disc brake package for around 650$ fwiw