[brian400ex]

I have a 19666 Impala and was thinking on putting disk brakes up front. Any thoughts?

Brian

[Silver]

i would do it. brake components are easy to come by. i dont know too much about the impalas, but i do know a bit about chevy's. in the generation of impalas that you have, was there one that came with disc's?? if so the set out to look for one in a junk yard. take all the brake components such as the rotors, calipers, spindles, master cylinder, proportioning valve. take all of these parts and put them on your car after checking to see if the parts are in good shape. if not then do this, i would do this anyways, get new pads, calipers, rotors hoses and proportioning valve. the reason for getting these at a junk yard is to save money. use the parts out of the junk yard for the core. if the impalas in that generation did not have disc brakes then look into it. i know that lots of chevy parts are the same in other cars. find a car with the same suspension set up and upgrade. if you do not like this idea then look into baer or wilwood brakes. there are some others that are good too. but i am not on my computer where i have all of this information saved. good luck

[brian400ex]

Thanks for the info. I was either think on getting the kit from MP brakes or PST suspension. Any thoughts on which one is better?

[Silver]

Either would do. Just make sure that which ever you do isn’t going to interfere with your wheels. Some discs can be large and may prohibit your wheels from mounting. If you have aftermarket wheels then there shouldn’t be a problem provided they are 16's or larger. Did you look at the Baer braking systems? Or wilwood? These are the ones that I see the most. I know that the Baer brake calipers have 6 pistons in some of the applications. Good luck with your brakes.
Silver

[bullheimer]

i say do it, but listen to silver about disc/wheel sizes. i have yet to do it to my 66 tempest, but there is one thing i am meaning to do first to see if it will eliminate some of the sponginess. i want to replace all the rubber flexible brake lines. braided stainless steel would be okay and not much money more than stock rubber, but the rubber ones, if new, should do the trick as the old ones start to soften with age. i am not quite convinced that rubber (new) is worse that the braided steel. i would like to know any other thoughts on that if you want to pm me pls. i dont want to spend the money on braided steel if i will have to convert to discs to eliminate all the sponginess later. 4 wheel discs would be sweeter yet. my truck has them and it stops (all 5400 lbs) on a dime.

[F-1Rodder]

Brian: why not do a little research and see if you can get a stock replaement brake into your '66. I don't know if they were available for that year, I know they were in '67. If you can find a fit from a stock Chev or another GM model, you can save a lot of money. Many of the suspension parts were interchangeable with other GM cars, some of which may have offered discs as stock. You would save a lot of money because you can do the job out of the wrecking yard, swap meet or your local parts store. If you go to your library, you may find a parts interchange manual for your year and later and find that the parts were interchangeable by part number. Then you just start searching for the vehicles you need as donors. Master power brakes is going to run you $1000 or so. I did this on my '67 camaro clip and found out there were a half dozen different options running clear up until '71. I did the whole front end for $100.

Bullheimer....just replace your rubber lines. They really don't last all that long and if you have lines that are 5 years old or more, I have seen them collapse and cause lock up (not good). Fresh lines will give you a good solid pedal as long as your master is in good shape.

[ March 03, 2003: Message edited by: F-1Rodder ]</p>

[ekcaminoron]

69/72 gm works for most evey swap. look for 2 piston calp. 4 pistons problem plagued. doing this to my 65 el camino.
good luck and fyi ck how much cores are for new stuff. may not be worth it as junk yard core.