On my Galaxie the spindles didn't look like they had much if any Ackerman ( I new they did, but figured it was less than the "theoretically perfect" amount), but today when I attached a string to the ball joint, ran it back to the rear diff and held it in place with a magnet the string perfectly bisected the outer tie rod mount.  Long story short, Ford got it right. who knew Since I will be modifiying the PBR mounts and make my own steering arm I figured I would revive the original post. 

Posted by Daze on April 11, 2011, 11:40 am I am thinking of putting Mustang PBR Calipers on Galaxie disc spindles for those of you not familiar with the PBR calipers they came on 99-04 Mustang GT and Cobra cars and are an aluminum body with dual pistonsAnyway I was already going to retrofit a set on to my Mustang and got to thinking they would be a fantastic upgrade for the Gal as well.  currently I have 78 LTD II disc brakes on my 62 and as has been discussed many times those are not always a good choice due to camber issues, any way I am parting out a 72 country squire on Wednesday and the disc brakes are one of the parts I will be taking.  I am think that with these spindles on the bench I should be able to design a way to mate the PBR calipers to the OEM spindles.  More to come as I know more.

Posted by Daze on April 16, 2011, 9:34 pm this project is getting closer mocked things up on Thursday and the bracket should be easy.The OEM brakes are a simple enough design but the calipers seam to be a little lacking.    The PBR caliper bracket just bairly fits between the steering arm and the urightShould be sharp looking from the front. had the used rotors that came on the spindles turned today and they are almost thin enough to fit inside the PBR calipers.  the PBR rotors start out 1.03" and the country squire rotors were turned down to 1.06" so I think I can over come the .03" by shaving the pads just a touch.

Posted by Daze on April 22, 2011, 7:50 pm got the bracket part way done I started by using a piece of 16 gage steel to serve as a spacer between the caliper bracket and the rotor. I then used 1/4" X 1.5" X 1.5" angle iron to make the main brackets.  The caliper is mounted solidly enough but I still don't like the fact that the 9/16" bolt had to be threaded through the side of the spindle in to to the 1/4" steel of the upper angle iron bracket (there wasn't enough room for a nut or a bolt head)  so I am going to utilize the OEM hole in the spindles and weld a 1/8" plate to the upper bracket and thread the hole in the spindle.  I normally don't like using welds on a bracket like this, but since it is a redundancy to reinforce the threaded bracket I think it will be fine.  Also I don't like the fact that the brackets are two individual pieces so I plan on welding a piece of 1/8" X 1" steel between the two piece of angle iron.  This should help tie everything together and once again simply act as a reinforcement to an already solid system.  thoughts??

Posted by jeff hann on April 24, 2011, 12:35 pm, Interesting..... I have those brakes on my '66. They work fine for me, and a little grinding solved the camber issue. Let us know how you like the newer calipers. I might try 'em out too. Thanks for the pics.

Posted by JEM on April 24, 2011, 9:03 pm I started putting PBRs on my '64 with '72 spindles...the earlier pad-guided PBRs from an early '90s Z51/ZR1 'Vette. Then I gave up on that and bought a set of Porsche 996 TT calipers. Then I put that on hold because I had to change wheels and the rotors I'd planned on using (Mercedes ML55) wouldn't have enough hat depth to let the calipers clear the new wheels. Now I've pretty much decided to see if I can make a set of Porsche Cayenne calipers and 14in rotors fit, but those calipers are about the size of the Graf Zeppelin and I'm a bit worried about upper control arm clearance. I thought I had a set of Cayenne ZR18 calipers, but the seller suddenly realized he had two rights and no lefts. More as it develops...

Posted by Daze on April 25, 2011, 8:38 pm, Getting closer after making some revisions After my original post about my bracketry to attach PBR brackets to some Galaxie spindles I new several things had to be changed. 1. 1/4" angle iron was a little on the thin side2. the two brackets needed to be tied together.3. I needed a second mount on the upper bracket besides where I had threaded the 1/4" angle iron No matter how I sliced it there were there was only room for 1/4" angle at the top mount, but  I think I came up with a solution for all the issues. First I drilled and tapped the body of the spindle so there was a second mount for the upper bracket not just the one through the side of the upright.  Then I took a piece of 1/4" plate and cut it to fit inside the angle iron and doubled the thickness. here is the set up with just the 1/4" angle iron and the new mounting location. and here it is with the additional 1/4" plate<img src="http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/8184/platep.jpg[/img]  by doubling the material I now have a thickness of 1/2"  I realize it will not be as strong as if it was a 1 piece bracket rather than a 3 piece, but it should be comparable to a 3/8" thick bracket. I still need to make some aesthetic changes, but I think I am on the right track. thoughts??

Posted by JEM on April 26, 2011, 9:56 am Two thoughts... 1) Frankly, I don't particularly like 1/4in thick brackets but there's lots of kits out there that use them, in this application it's so small that it probably wouldn't have been a problem. 2) Why not just cut it from 3/8in plate, notch it and weld in a nut at the top? If you could get the plate drawn up in Autocad or Solidworks you could have them CNC laser or waterjet cut then the fabrication process would be (a) grab a plate (b) drum-sand the edge for cleanup if you really wanted to (c) weld in the nut and you're done. 3) You are leaving enough clearance between the bracket and the caliper body to accommodate its movement during use, right?

Posted by Daze on April 26, 2011, 12:26 pm, appreciate the input I agree on the 1/4" material and that is why I used angle on both and am doubling up the material with the the connecting plat.  Once I weld all three together I should have a nice thick solid bracket.  As to welding the nut, its a good idea but as a mater of personal preference I don't like welds at connection points where the part will see 10s of 1000s of cycles.  welds can be a little more brittle than the actual steel and can fatigue over time.  its a little different where I am welding the angle to the plate as the welds are a redundancy.  thanks again for your input.