A couple of questions, I am assuming that there are conversion kits available. Does anyone know who sells them? Are their shops in the northeast that do this kind of work?
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Cip1, JBugs, AIRKEWELD, and several more offer conversion kits. Are you doing front, back or both?
Price points are all over the place depending on a number of factors, including materials.
Fronts aren't hard to do, I converted mine from four lug to wide five and if I can do it, most anyone can.
You are about to get a good deal of advice.
First of all, what car do you have? Speedster or Spyder? Manufacturer?
Ball joint beam or link-pin? Do you currently have 4 x 130mm bolt pattern, or 5 x 205mm? And if you have one do you want to convert to the other?
Swing axle or IRS in the back?
Do you currently have 4 wheel drum brakes? Do you want to do all 4 discs or front only?
How do you use the car? If you just cruise around, 4 wheel discs are unnecessary. Some spirited driving, just do front discs. If you drive REALLY hard, all 4 discs are a good idea.
According to Google, you are less than 100 miles from me. I can do the work. I'm a retired guy who loves tinkering with Speedsters, Spyders, dune buggies, 911s, and such. I'm an aircooled guy.
If you want to get in contact, send me a PM.
DPP(Dan Piperato Performance)
Danny's work is excellent. I can attest to that.
I want to be less than 100 miles from Danny.
Danny asked the right questions - front discs don't present much in way of issues. I did have to add 1/4" spacers so my 2L Porsche Fuchs would clear the calipers. The rear is quite different as on a CMC the fender to wheel clearance is tight (mine is IRS and is even tighter on the driver's side - I still have OEM drums on rear). Some rear brake kits claim to add zero to any increased offset - on mine a 1/4" increase would be too much. On a build with swing axle, you may have more room.
On the rear 3/4" CMC fender well lip you can remove some of the material for tire side wall clearance as long as you retain 1/4" - 5/16" for structural support it only needs to be done at the 12 to 3'oclock position.
@IaM-Ray posted:Baaaaa. You and one hundred of us
. Well there is Alan and ……
But I have free cake. Just saying.
I keep hoping for a really bad winter in NE so I can get a crew from there down here to sunny warm (ok 111 was a little too warm the other day) Florida! Got BBQ, boiled peanuts, crawdads, grits and fried okra!
What about going from rear disc to drums on an IRS? Does that bring the rear wheels inward at all to help with the cmc driver side tightness?
@WOLFGANG posted:I keep hoping for a really bad winter in NE so I can get a crew from there down here to sunny warm (ok 111 was a little too warm the other day) Florida! Got BBQ, boiled peanuts, crawdads, grits and fried okra!
If you have accommodations better than a leather couch to sleep on, I could be in. Winter no longer bothers me, but 111F(and humid!) certainly does!
@Heritage 2008 posted:What about going from rear disc to drums on an IRS? Does that bring the rear wheels inward at all to help with the cmc driver side tightness?
Depends on what disc brake kit you have, some kits actually are zero offset. If you have clearance now, why do you need more? Wider tires? And if you got more, you might need to re-center the wheels, which you could do now(but only if your wheels are steel).
I don't know of a single soul who would go from discs to drums. None.
Running 185's it's just so tight (but hasn't rubbed) on driver's side. Was looking to add an emergency brake and since my caliper is without I was seeking solutions. Yes, I know they make disc calipers with e-brakes.
@WOLFGANG Are you saying you're going to finish the speedster????
@DannyP If you have accommodations better than a leather couch to sleep on, I could be in. Winter no longer bothers me, but 111F(and humid!) certainly does! ...........That's because like me, Danny is retired and no longer has to work out in the bs cold weather !
If you change the front drums to disc, do you also need to change the master cylinder?
Yes.
Get a larger bore MC from a later Karmann Ghia or Super Beetle that had front disk brakes.
Or do a master cylinder search on here.....We've talked about this before with good pointers on which one to get.
Absolutely.
Place the MC reservoir on the MC--hidden nicely and still easy to get at.
I've seen Volvo reservoirs that fit on VW MC.