my son just bought his first car which is a 64 convertible that has 14 in rims and new Goodyear tires on it. The stock breaks are bad so I want to install an upgrade disks on the front. I would like to know who makes the best disc brake kit and what size rims can I go up to with tires and the proper offset. Any help will greatly appreciated.

 

Welcome. Start with this thread about brake conversions.

The short answer is that disk brakes were available from the factory starting with the 1967 model year and retrofit back to the 1964 cars with no problems. These factory disk brakes used 10.75" rotors and came with 14" wheels. The one problem that you will have is that through the 1960s, GM made two different types of 14" wheels, ones that clear disk brakes and ones that do not. Since your 64 was never offered with disks, if your wheels are original they will NOT clear the disks. You will need to get new wheels no matter what you do. Later 14" wheels that did come on disk brake cars are available and would allow you to keep the new tires if that's what you want to do.

Also, if you go out and look at the emblem on the front fender, it's spelled CutlAss.

 

I once had a '64 Jetstar 88 that used the same brake system as your car, and it stopped just fine. While disk brakes were certainly an improvement over drums on all four wheels, the latter system was certainly capable of stopping the car adequately when in good condition and properly adjusted. I never once, in the five years I owned it, felt that my Jetstar was unsafe to drive or didn't have adequate stopping capability, and the Jetstar was a full-size car whereas your Cutlass is a lighter intermediate.

If you car's brakes are bad, you might consider checking them over thoroughly and possibly bringing them back up to proper condition before deciding to go through the time, money, and hassle of converting to disk brakes. Consider putting the money and time you would have spent on that into other things the car might need.

 

As I type this, I am in the middle of a brake system rebuild on my 1962 Super 88. I'm going to be going back outside to pull apart the rears after lunch.

I've had a number of cars with 4-way drum brakes, and I've upgraded some of them to disc/drum systems. My primary reason for upgrading from drum/drum to disc/drum has been for convenience of maintenance, not for safety or stopping power.

My 1962 Super 88 has power drum brakes, and it has always stopped very, very well. I have never felt that it's brakes were inadequate, and because the self-adjusters were introduced on my car for 1962 (first model year to have it!) maintaining/adjusting the drum brakes on this car isn't really a headache. I don't think maintenance would be too much of a headache on a 1964 that has self-adjusters.

The only reason I'm rebuilding the brakes on my car right now is because the car has sat for years and it needs new hydraulics. That, and I'm converting it from a single-channel system to a dual-channel system for safety reasons. I'm not familiar with the plumbing on your car, but if it uses a single-chamber master cylinder, then I would be more concerned about converting it to a system that isolates the front and rear circuits than about disc-brake stopping power.

With that said, if you do want to go ahead with a disc/drum setup, selecting the right wheels can have many pitfalls that you'll need to be aware of. If you're not worried at all about hubcaps, then any 14" disc-type wheel will be fine -- as long as you stay with a small disc conversion -- and as Joe mentioned a 14" drum-type wheel will not work.

If you want to keep your 14" rubber and your original hubcaps, be aware that small size hubcaps may require the wheels to have mounting nubs that the new disc-era wheels may or may not have. If you have full-size hubcaps then you still might need to verify the mounting system. Also bear in mind that the hole for the valvestem on the wheel will be relocated as you move from a GM drum-type wheel to a GM disc-type wheel, and this may cause your valvestems not to line up with the ports in the hubcaps.

All of these problems will go away if you decide that you want to go with 15" or larger wheels. Then just about any 15" wheel will clear the calipers on a small disc setup.

I went through a lot of pain upgrading my '57 Chevy from drum/drum to disc/drum because I wanted to keep the original hubcaps on 14" wheels. I could not find disc-type wheels that had proper rim profile to clear the calipers and had the offset that I needed for my wheel/tire/suspension combination. Instead of spending a lifetime looking for "special" oddball wheels at swap meets, I ended up having to have disc-type steel wheels custom fabricated to my specs. If you decide to do the disc upgrade, be sure to do your homework before you make the purchase, and know what type of suspension and tires you plan on using before you buy the conversion -- otherwise you might overlook something that could come back to bite you. These things are never as easy or as straightforward as you hope them to be. Double check everything. Then check again.

I'm rebuilding my '62 Super 88 right now and it's getting a new dual-pot master cylinder upgrade, and I'm keeping the original power drum setup. The car has plenty of get-up-and-go, and plenty of stopping power with drum brakes, and with self-adjusters maintenance isn't a problem. For this car, I don't think that a disc/drum upgrade is worth the headache.

Just my $0.02. Have fun!

 

Joe and Bob thanks for your feed back and my spelling error with cutlass. Lol I don't have the stock rims on the car. I believe that they are American racing five star rally type rim. I also have a single camber system on it now. I have a leak somewhere because the pedal goes to the floor so instead of trying to fix the old system I want to upgrade to disk / drum set up. So do you recommend a manufacturer over another? As for rims I don't care if they they are stock or aftermarket. What size rim would I have the most tire verity to choose from? The 14 that I have now rub when I turn it lock to lock. So choosing 15,16,18 and going to a lower profile should be ok?

 

Custom wheels can make the fitment problem with a disc conversion better or worse. In one sense you're better off because you don't have to worry about backward compatibility with rims/hubcaps that you want to keep, but in another sense you're worse off because now you have to worry about things like getting the wheel backspace right. that can be particularly easy if you're looking for rims for the cars that they had in mind when designing your rims, or particularly challenging if you're looking for rims for a car that they didn't have in mind when designing your rims.

I hate to keep bringing up my Chevy application, but it illustrates the point:

My car was already lowered 2" in the front. The car had 2" drop springs that I wanted to get rid of because they changed my suspension geometry for the worse, so I spent $300 on a set of Heidt 2" drop spindles and another $100 or so on a new set of stock-height springs. I also wanted the widest front tire that I could fit without rubbing, and this required a specific backspace measurement that wasn't commonly available with aftermarket rims.

Those criteria severely limited my options. I had to get under the car, take lots of measurements, and run through all sorts of spreadsheets and on-line backspace calculators because there was no easy answer. In performing the front disc conversion I ended up having to buy custom made wheels for the application that have hubcap mounting nubs welded in place, and then I had to have the custom wheels sent out for powdercoating.

Further complicating the disc brake conversion problem is a very dirty little secret that nobody who sells disc brake conversions is willing to talk about -- the fact that their disc conversions are going to change your wheel offset for the worse.

In my Chevy case, there were plenty of cheap / affordable / appealing disc brake conversions, and everyone advertised their strong points being cheap / affordable. The sellers deliberately avoided telling you that *EVERY* disc brake conversion kit pushed the wheel mounting surfaces outward on the axle as if you had added spacers. Some conversions were far worse in this respect than others, making the wheel rub problem really, really bad.

To maintain proper suspension geometry (closer to normal) you often have to go with the more expensive kits that are expensive because they were designed to minimize the adverse effects on wheel offset. If you bought the cheaper kits then your wheels got pushed too far outward, offset got worse, suspension geometry went all to hell and you ended up with rubbing tires or being forced to run skinny rubber up front. There is a good reason that the cheap kits are cheap and the expensive kits are expensive. The expensive kits were designed to avoid some of the bad outcomes.

If you've got a rub now then you've already got a tire / wheel / suspension problem that you've got to understand fully before you go buying anything like a disc brake setup, which is only going to make the problem worse. Something is already wrong on your car, and almost any disc conversion is likely to make it worse, not better. Maybe it's just something simple like the wrong tire or wheel size. Maybe it's something less easy to correct, like improper wheel backspacing, that is going to force you to buy new rims. Maybe it's something that will be really expensive to correct, like modified suspension parts or a lowering kit.

You have a *LOT* of homework to do before you consider buying anything.

To answer your question about larger rims with low profile tires -- NO. Just going to larger diameter rims won't necessarily help you. While larger diameter rims will give you more clearance around the disc brake caliper, a properly performed +1 or +2 conversion won't change your tire's external size, it will keep it the same.

 

86 cutlass spindles, rotors, calipers, and brackets, pads, upper and lower ball joints, outer tie rod ends. if I remember right you need to polish 2 thousandths off of the ball joints to fit right. 14" ss2 wheels fit and the plus side is u can go to a local auto parts store and buy pads and rotors
that's what's on the front of my 64

 

This is a lot of work for no additional benefit. In addition to the ball joint and tie rod end problems, the later model spindles have the steering arms in the wrong place and cause bump steer.

Just get the correct spindles for a 1964-72 A-body. Everybody sells them. Used stock parts are guaranteed to work. If you want new, Right Stuff has a mini kit that includes the spindles, caliper brackets, and splash shields. The rotors, calipers, hoses, and M/C are available locally at auto parts stores. Get the brass aftermarket combo valve. You'll need to swap the pushrod in your booster for the short one used on the dual circuit M/C. Inline Tube sells this for about $5. Bend lines to match.

Conversely, you can get everything from any of the usual suppliers as a kit, including pre-bent lines. Expect to pay much more for the one-stop-shopping convenience. Again, read the link I posted above for more info about conversions. All of the new spindles and brackets are Chinesium, so shop for the best price.

 

If disc brakes were an option for your model/year, then that's the obvious solution to the problem. You've got it easy.

 

The car is a 1964 Cutlass. The factory didn't offer disc brakes until the 1967 model year.

The front suspension and spindles are interchangeable on all 1964-72 A-body cars. EVERYBODY sells this disc brake conversion, since Chevelles are the same. The parts just about fall from the sky. Again, your best choice is to find good used factory 1969-72 disc brake parts, as these use the sliding caliper. The aftermarket kits are fine, but the parts are made in China. Your money, your call. There is no substantive difference among the aftermarket kits from a fitment or quality standpoint for the factory replacement kits (all bets are off on kits with oversize rotors).

One more time, I have a fairly extensive thread on this swap. See the link in my first post in this thread.