I was wondering if anyone has done a g-body to a-body spindle swap. I would like to go to larger brakes as I feel the brakes are very weak. I just did a drum to disk swap on my 68 Chevelle and was looking to use my spindles and hubs to do do a large brake up-grade to my 78 El Camino. I know the spindles need to modified some but will they bolt up and have the correct geometry? I figure I will have to use the Chevelle ball joints and outer tie-rods, anything else? I figure since I already have them it should cut down on cost some and I do have access to several machine shops for any mods necessary. Thanks for any and all help.
G-body to A-body spindle swap
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bubbamura said:
This is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. First, the 64-72 A-body cars used a different ball joint and tie rod taper than the later cars. While you can physically insert the ball joint studs into the holes in the spindles, the tapers don't seat properly, resulting in bending in the studs and eventual catastrophic failure of the ball joints.
Second, the early spindles are shorter than the later ones, which wreaks all kinds of havoc with suspension geometry and handling.
Third, the steering arms are not the correct shape for the later cars.
Fourth, if you are starting with drum brake spindles, they still need to be machined to bolt up caliper brackets. You could have done that on the Chevelle and saved a bunch of money on that conversion.
The easiest big brake swap is the B-body spindles with the 1LE rotors to get the correct wheel bolt pattern. You still need to change the upper control arms, however.
Thanks Joe, some good info there, just what I was looking for. The drum/disc wasn't that costly, under $300 for everything. I've seen on the chevelle site where a few people have done the A-to-G body swap so was figuring it would work the other way around. Having just done a complete overhaul on the Elky's front brakes, I am not pleased with how weak they are. Turned rotor's, new caliper's, new pads, braided lines and complete flush of the system and they are not any better. Tried some performance pads but they sucked badly. Put in some cheapy semi-metallic pads and they are noticeably better but not what I think they should be. Was thinking I could do the C5 brake swap onto the Elky using the Chevelle spindles but wanted some clarification before delving into it.
bubbamura said:
That's a good deal. Where did you get them?
The G-spindles onto A-body requires either new ball joints or remachining of the tapered holes in the spindles. You can go the other way, I'm just not sure it's worth it. Baer machines the caliper mounting features off of the integral spindles and mounts new brackets for some of their big brake conversions.
Got them from performance online. Everything but mastercylinder/booster, already had that. Good quality stuff. They usually have auctions on E-bay but you can find them at performanceonline.com, they are in Fullerton Calif.Using the drum spindles you can use the C5 corvette rotors and calipers, but you need to turn down the outer diameter of the hub for the hats to fit over them and of course you need special brackets for the calipers, several companies are making them. Priced everything out at one time for about $600, depending on how fancy you wanted the rotors or the brake pads. Seemed pretty reasonable to me, specially for getting 13" rotors and four piston calipers. Course you need to run 17" wheels for everything to clear properly.
Ed Miller www.flynbye.com has brackets for $75 to mount the C5 13" Vette calipers to the g-body spindles. Use the g-body hub/rotor after machining off the rotor to mount the Vette rotor. Frank at www.scandc.com sells the aftermarket upper tubular arm to run tall upper & lower ball joints to improve the geometery. Better geometery than the b-body spindle offers without the bumpsteer issues.
sschevyss said:
I'm not sure if this bracket bolts to the old dust shield holes or the old caliper holes. I think it's the old dust shield holes. If your dropped spindles have the dust shield holes anyway, then yes, you can do the same. I'll get you an answer to that soon as I can.
The caliper bracket bolts to the holes once occupied by the stock caliper. The original caliper bracket ears are removed, a Sawz-All work fine. The C5 caliper then bolts to the adapter bracket.
These pics will help clear things up a bit I hope.
With some simple mods, the bracket bolts to the spindle...
Then the caliper is bolted to the adapter bracket.
The rotor portion of the g-body hub is milled off and used as a hub for the Vette rotor which uses no integrel hub.
here's what you end up with.
And here's why you should do it.
That rotor on the right...is a stock 11" f-body rotor. Our stock g-body rotors are even smaller at 10.75"!
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