Anyone know of an easy brake caliper upgrade to do on the dana 44 from a 78 Ford 5 on 5 1/2"? I don't want to go to 8 lug for the bigger brakes. Want a bolt in application. No fabbing. Once you start fabbing, you can't stop...

I heard you can use Ford Thunderbird calipers because their piston diameter is like an 1" larger than the ford's pison. The problem with that swap is that you have to change the lines and fittings b/c the Thunderbird's brake hose mount is not 90 degrees and interferes with the ball joint. blah blah blah, but you do get a bigger piston.

Also heard of retrofitting a 70's lincoln caliper? Anyone do this?

Will slotted rotors help stopping power?

Keep in mind that if you use calipers with a larger bore, you'll need a bigger master cylinder to push more fluid. Maybe instead of messing with the calipers, you should swap out the master cylinder and vacuum booster instead.

Are your brakes really that bad? What size tire do you have?

New master cylinder too? AAuugghh!

Just to make it more complicated, I'm swapping the axle into my Jeep Wrangler. So all of the brake componenets will be stock Jeep parts. I'm running 33's right now and the braking is terrible! Can't lock up at all or slow down very fast. I can't imagine how bad the Jeep will brake now with a dana 60 and a dana 44 onboard with 36" tires....


Any suggestions?

I've never looked at this myself but you may be able to swap the caliper bracket and the caliper from a 3/4 ton Dana 44 and use the dual piston calipers in the front. I don't know if the offset on the brake rotor or the diameter of the 1/2 brake rotor is correct but the bracket should be a bolt on.

I'm running 60's front and rear with dual piston calipers front and rear with a Chevy master cylinder (I can get you the casting number but I don't know the application). I also swapped the vacuum booster to a setup from a mid 80s G20 Chevy van.

It stops exceptionally well with 39.5 tires. I have no problem locking all 4 tires on asphalt.

Brought back this thread b/c I tracked this down:

78/79 Bronco D44 brake upgrade (http://www.broncotech.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000933.html)

The bottom line is a new MC, booster, and mid-70's Thunderchicken calipers give damn good results, all things considered.

Hey LT1YJ....with the twin piston caliper ....what type and size wheel are you running to fit these huge calipers?

I started with 36x12.50x16 swampers on 16x9.75 American Eagle 589's with 3 1/4" backspacing. There is plenty of clearance with the 16's.

Then I went to 39.5x18.5x16.5 boggers on 16.5x12 Barts with 3.5" of backspacing, then switched to 16.5x10's with same backspacing.

Now I'm running 39.5x 18.5x16.5 boggers on 16.5x9.75 hummer rims with beadlocks ~7" backspacing (went to dually hubs). I just picked up a set of 42x15.5x16.5 swampers and 16.5x9.75 hummer rims that will go on for street driving.

I played with the 15x10's with 3.5" of backspacing and could have made them work with a lot of grinding but the deal fell through on the tires so I stuck with what I had. I think 2.5" of backspacing on a 15" rim might clear with no or very light grinding depending on the rim you get.

One really nice thing with the dual piston calipers, they came on a lot of 3/4 ton and 1 ton Ford 2wd's and 4wd's. They are ~$30 rebuilt and pads are $25 a set.