[664d2ofus]

I recently went to a local parts house to purchase drums for our 66.
the only selection in the stores sytem data base were either 9" or 10" drums, well I knew mine were 9" but when I brought them home and compared the depth of my orignals to the new ones and determine that mine were 2 1/4" in depth compared to the 1 1/2" that I received.
Has any shared this same experience and does anyone reccomend a site were I can locate 9" x 2 1/4" Drums.

Thanks 664d2ofus

[mustangman1966t]

Well that's new to me. Sacremento Mustang, Dallas Mustang, Texas Mustang, Mustangs Plus.

[mccance]

now might be a good time to look into a disk conversion.

I know, i know if you wanted advice on how to convert to disks you would have asked. but it is a thought.

[mustangman1966t]

+1
My manual drum '66 was not bad considering, but my '68 manual drum was horrible. There is no way I would daily-drive a drum brake car here in the Dallas Metroplex. For a stock conversion, Stainless Steel is pretty good.

[RagHead]

I ran into the same problem just working on the brakes. My 66 vert has 2 1/4 inch brakes on the front and 1 1/2 on the rear. Found that out doing a brake job. And its a I6 like yours.

[v8only]

I'm not buying it...in theory drum brakes are more efficient than disc. I have 4 wheel drum on my 66, and it's dialed in 100% and it stops fantastic. While a disc conversion is nice, it's not always practical.

return the junk, and buy from someone else who has the proper part for a car that's been around almost 50 years

[mccance]

while I do not disagree that dialed in front drum brakes are adequate under most circumstances there are significant benefits to the conversion. primarily in the area of handling by reducing the risk of severe side to side imbalance, and in the reduction of brake fade, as well as improved stopping performance in wet conditions.

I do agree that it is not cheap but if you are thinking about doing the conversion someday, rather than buying new drums now and then doing the conversion next year well maybe it would be better to bite the bullet now. just a thought for other people considering brake upgrades.

I do not necessarily believe every advance in automotive technology is done solely for the best reasons, but if you can find a new car on the market today with 4 wheel drum brakes I will apologize and shutup about this subject. since that is unlikely I would just venture to say that there must be a reason why essentially every new car built in the last 20 years has front disk brakes. and it is not because it is cheaper.

[Jay H 237]

Yeah, I've run into this problem before. I have 4 wheel manual drums on my 68 with the 289. Most parts places by me have young people working there that are lost when I mention that my car has drums in the FRONT! All they can remember is all vehicles having disks in thier lifetime.

I have the Mustang's Unlimited and NPD catalogs here. The front 65-66 6cyl 9" x 2 1/4" drums are part number D2640 and $49.95 at MU and are p# 1102-1 for $33.95 at NPD. I think a true Mustang supplier will be your best bet for this.

Note: while doing the front brakes is a good time to replace your wheel bearings if needed/wanted.

(I'll be doing this next year too as I plan to replace all 4 of my drums, plus the shoes, springs and wheel cylinders last done in '98 when I bought the car.)

[MizzouMike76]

It does seem there is some confusion (on the parts house end) as to which diameter and depth drums were on which cars. How much are the new drums? The fronts can be reasonable, but as some have said a disc conversion is the way to go.

That said, I have 4 wheel power drums on my 66 289 convertible, and it stops on a dime. My drums are in very good shape with lots of life left in them, so I decided to keep them and just upgrade to a power dual bowl MC; in the future when I have more money, I will certainly switch over to front disc.

If I were you, I would add up the cost of the brake job at hand, and then consider the cost of a drum conversion, and go from there.

If you want to keep it original, or if you don't drive your Mustang much, or just plain don't want to mess with it, then those are all things to consider.

Disc brakes cerrtainly have their advantages; fewer parts to deal with (think of all those springs), less adjustment headaches, and less brake fade. The drums might have more surface area and less rolling resistance, but they're just antiquated technology.

[mccance]

the other thing is when I read the other posts the author of this thread has written the author specifically asked about a disk brake conversion which like I said makes it seem like a smarter plan to do the conversion rather than throw money away on new drums.

[MizzouMike76]

I agree. A one axle brake job can get you $300 in parts alone once the drums and everything else is figured in.

http://www.scarebird.com/

This guy has brackets that use off the shelf Autozone parts to do a disc conversion, or at least he used to. Does anyone know what the latest on Scarebird is? I've been outta the country for a while.

Michael

[RagHead]

Originally Posted by MizzouMike76

I agree. A one axle brake job can get you $300 in parts alone once the drums and everything else is figured in.

Scarebird Classic Brakes LLC

This guy has brackets that use off the shelf Autozone parts to do a disc conversion, or at least he used to. Does anyone know what the latest on Scarebird is? I've been outta the country for a while.

Michael

He is still making and selling bracket for disc brake conversions. In fact I finally finished my 4 lug conversion on my 66 Mustang. Next off day will do the dual master and bleed the whole system. Total cost for the conversion without the master was $275.00 including his brackets . Big saving over what SSB wants for their 4 lug conversion.