The existing brakes on the ’73 Dart are doing their job fairly well, but the parts were getting old and worn. And when at one time I noticed a slight pull on the steeringwheel, because of a front brake caliper sticking, I decided it was time for an upgrade, since the rotors were wearing a little thin aswell.
The original disc rotors are 10.5″ orso in size, and just under an inch thick.
Since I had some fullsize Chrysler rotors at hand, I tried to see if it’s was possible to retrofit such an C-body brake system to an A-body Mopar.
After some trial mock-ups I decided it was very well possible so I went ahead with the upgrade.
The ’73 C-body rotors are a hefty 11.75″ in diameter, with an 1.25″ thickness. Plenty of heatsink-iron there.
I also used ’73 calipers, which have a larger bore than the ’73 Dart calipers. This would also rebalance the bias in the brakesystem again a bit to the frontwheels. Ever since the rearaxle-upgrade I’ve been noticing the rearbrakes wanting to lock-up fairly easy on wet roads and stiff braking.
The spindles had to be sleeved larger, so the larger C-body rotor-bearings would fit properly again.
The old master cylinder was replaced in favor of a new modern-style Mopar Performance master-cylinder with a slightly larger bore to supply the larger front calipers aswell.
All in all, this is not a real ‘upgrade’, since the entire brakesystem has become heavier than stock, but I’ve saved myself from having to buy all new parts, and just used what I already had laying around.
Added bonus is that I’m now using the exact same brake-rotor on all my discbrake converted cars!
