Just wondering why you have to swap knuckles when doing a front disc conversion. Just because it's easier than fabbing a caliper bracket ? I think a front disc could be doabl just the same as the rear... Just put a disc in place of the drum, mount a caliper and we're done... Am I missing something ?

(Please don't tell me to browse the arhive or Woody's, because it's just put everywhere as "to swap you drums for discs, you'll want to find mini knuckles, birfields....")

In Europe BTW, J40s had drums until 1982 :'(

Thanks for any input, which will be very appreciated.
Right here mini axles are even rarer than cheap BJ42 axles...
I'm thinking of buying TOYO discs, and adapt calipers from big french-made sedan (probably Pug) cause they're cheap...

Bye,

You dont HAVE to swap knuckles to do a disc conversion. Man-A-Fre has a kit that uses Wilwood calipers and custom brackets for drum style knuckles. I think the idea behind the swapping of knuckles (and other associated parts)is to use readily available in the US:) mini truck parts. They are stronger, cheaper and net a bolt on, no engineering required, factory setup that is upgradeable to L/C rotors and bigger calipers... Hope that answers your question.

Anything is possible with enough time and money. On this side of the pond there must be 20 mini trucks for each Cruiser, so mini knuckles are cheap and easy to find. They are stronger too. 60 series knuckles will work too.

On this side of the pond, it's a bit different....75-older Cruisers all have drum front brakes, their infamous PITA to adjust dual wheel cylinders, and the too small/weak coarse-spline birfields. Performing a disc swap from a 76+ Cruiser axle makes sense (79+ even more sense), however for the cost you usually end up with the ENTIRE axle, and not just the outer parts. So, in comes the minitruck swap....as mentioned, very plentiful out here. With that you get:

~ Stronger knuckle and stronger steering arm
~ Larger/stronger birfield with fine splines
~ Aisin lockouts - stronger than Warn or others
~ disc brakes, tho usually you swap in vented rotors and IFS V6 calipers (mini's are solid rotors)
~ Generally, pretty cheap....I've seen complete mini axles for $250 and less...my local junkyard had them for $100 a few years back and is "only" up to $200 now.
~ maintain easy replacement parts, nothing custom in there

Hence the commonness of this swap....I think that covers most of it???

All,

Thanks for your info. Brian, you covered most of it I admit...:beer:

Now the discs is only one point in the mini knuckle swap for "front axle improvement"...

Thanks for the info. That's pretty much what I'd have imagined, but it make a lot more sense, now..

Thanks,

Denis