Rick G's 69 KL60

[rjiggy]

Justin,

No problem. I have plans and the paint to paint the calipers and Master cylinder, a nice Blue color. When I pull everything apart, I can get some good pictures then. This weekend I am pulling the wheels off to get new tires, so I will remove the calipers and get some shots that way. I think I still have the invoices from the auto parts store(s) that I bought the calipers and rotors from. If I can find those, I'll scan and post them. When I did this conversion, I searched the junkyards high and low and bought old crusty parts to fab with. Once I had a good design and fit, I ordered new components to install.

The front backing plates were from a 80's Chevy 3/4 ton pickup. I cut the center out and welded in a 3/8" thick torch cut ring that was drilled to fit over the six studs on the knuckle that the spindle bolts to. The back plate already had all of the hardware to hang the caliper, not overly complicated once you see it. The rears were similar, but the torch cut plate mounted to the back of the axle flange and the eldorado/seville calipers mounted to the plate... if my memory serves me. I will elaborate more, when I post the pictures. The front rotors were from an 80's chevy 3/4 ton truck. The rear rotors were from the from of an 80's chevy 1/2 ton truck. I took all four rotors to a machine shop and had them turn the centers wider to accommodate the ginormous patrol hubs.

[rjiggy]

Friday I drove Ducky to work, with the intent of heading to my local Costco to have them install the new tires I bought. All was going well until I get there at 10:00am, and they tell me it's a two hour wait. No problem, I'll kill some time, and eat lunch there. 2 hours go by and the tech tells me that they can't take my wheels off because they don't have the torque specs for the lug nuts to put them back on. No problem again, armed with my trusty smart phone, and 60Patrol only a click away. I download the 78' service manual and show it to the manager. No dice. He says the manual needs to be "closer" to a 69 model year manual. I try to explain how long the 60 series was produced with only minor changes, to no avail. Only option left is to drive the Patrol home, do a NASCAR pit stop, load the wheels in my pickup and take them back to the Costco. I don't think I've ever used a torque wrench on lug nuts ever. I get it, in this litigous society we live in, no one can use common sense, they must always follow the process.

OK, enough complaints, I chose Bridgestone A/T Dueler Revo 2's in a 235/85R16 size. Here's the result:

20150327_185245.jpg

While I was waiting for the second time, I got to meet with Faux40, who happened to be travelling back from work. We talked Patrols for awhile, amongst other things. It was great to finally meet John.

[moore_rb]

Call me a nerd, but the tires are the most fun part of a project for me.. I love tire-porn.

[zed]

Good choice on tires, I have run REVOs for 10+ years on my 02 Tahoe.

Quiet ride (you will never hear the pavement over the quiet hush of the Patrol's motor),
straight tracking at 70+ mph (now no reason to be fearful of exceeding 50 mph with the Patrol) and most important,
the tires will last 30K miles (so, you wont have to replace them for at least 15 years).

Glad you did not buy some inexpensive tires from the local Pick-n-Pull.
Keith

[rjiggy]

Good choice on tires, I have run REVOs for 10+ years on my 02 Tahoe.

Quiet ride (you will never hear the pavement over the quiet hush of the Patrol's motor),
straight tracking at 70+ mph (now no reason to be fearful of exceeding 50 mph with the Patrol) and most important,
the tires will last 30K miles (so, you wont have to replace them for at least 15 years).

Glad you did not buy some inexpensive tires from the local Pick-n-Pull.
Keith

Thanks for that, I also have these on my one ton ford diesel p/u, and I have been really happy with them. It does ride really well with the new "shoes". I did manage to get to 70mph and it was a nice smooth ride. I learned my lesson a long time ago with regrads to recycled tires.

This weekend I spent fabricating my towbar mounts for Ducky. I used the towbar that I have for my Honda CRV. It is a piece of 3" c channel that fits between the frame rails. The c channel has pieces of 2" square tube that protrude through the bumper that the tow bar connects to.

20150330_043010-1.jpg

We're towing it this weekend up to Oroville for its maiden towed voyage, should be fun.

[rjiggy]

Hey Rick

Would you mind getting some pics of the Brackets you made for the Disc Brake conversions? Any more info would be helpful.

Justin,
Here are the pics you were looking for and some part numbers for the calipers and rotors. I also looked up the application of the calipers and rotors for reference.

20150327_165228.jpg

20150327_165403.jpg

20150327_165336.jpg

The donor truck for the front backing plates, rotors and calipers I believe was a 1980 Chevy K10 Silverado 4wd pickup

Here are some part numbers for the front:
Rotors 5020RGS O'reilly AP
Caliper right 18-4124 Cardone
Caliper left 18-4125 Cardone

I'll create another post for the rear. Got to get to work.

[moore_rb]

Rick- you and TNPatroller are the only two guys I know running well engineered (and well executed) disk brake conversions... Thanks for sharing the close-up pictures...

The cost of totally overhauling a Patrol's stock brakes is about $500 bucks (minus labor): 6 new Protex wheel cylinders, and a new dual-reservoir Protex master cylinder out of Australia are $300+ USD with shipping), plus another $200 to have the factory shoes re-lined, and the drums turned, at the local brake and clutch shop.

or, I could spend an afternoon at the pick-a -part place, tack on a couple hundred bucks to the machine shop, and copy your design for about the same $500.... hmmm. You've given me something to think about when I'm ready to re-assemble my "nowhere near original" 66 someday...

[RiverPatrol]

The cost of overhauling the complete brake system used to be a lot higher, so the disk brake conversion was more in-demand a while back. Used to be that the front wheel cylinders were $150 each, and the rears were $100 each. So you were looking at $800 just for wheel cylinders alone. Those were factory parts of course. But, yeah, it made disk brakes very appealing.

This was one of the successful conversions, but there were many that were very scary. The Patrol community has been waiting for someone to put together a successful 'How-to' for years. HINT, HINT!

[faux40]

This was one of the successful conversions, but there were many that were very scary. The Patrol community has been waiting for someone to put together a successful 'How-to' for years. HINT, HINT!

I'll do it... once I start my conversion!

[jwgreen]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Early-Bronco-Di ... 1004264309

Does anyone know if this would bolt up to the Patrol Knuckle?