My car came with manual drum brakes all the way around, and a single reservoir master cylinder. My
legs would often be sore the next day after driving my car so we looked into putting power disc brakes on it. The aftermarket
kits were pretty expensive so my husband did some looking and asking around on the internet and on Mustang message boards
to see what alternatives there were. He found a site for fitting a 1987 Mustang power brake booster into the first generation
Mustangs. Here is a link to that page....
Though the page was very helpful and we did use this booster there were a couple little issues that
we had that were not mentioned in the article.
The master cylinder is a custom aftermarket aluminum piece manufactured by a company near by us in
Lakewood Ohio. The company is Tuff Stuff Performance Accessories. My husband was so impressed, and also since their products
are American made, he now carries their product line at his online custom car parts site, www.artisticmachine.com .
We found disc brake spindles from a 1976 Granada, where else, on ebay and got them with all the little
hardware pieces and splash shields. I think we paid about $65.00 all together. They typically sell for more than that as there
are many other people looking to do this swap. We got new discs, calipers, and pads as well as the flexible brake lines. All
the stainless steel hard lines were cut and bent by my husband. He also used adapters from Mustangs Unlimited to connect the
hard lines to the flexible lines. They made the job just a little easier.
At the time that the disc brakes, power brake booster, and custom master cylinder were installed
my husband also did the "Shelby Drop" where the upper control arm is lowered 1 inch and it certainly did improve the handling.
The entire front suspension was also rebuilt at this time. On the following pages I will detail how
most all the work was done. Some of it was discovered online, some was recommended by others with these cars, and yet other
work was read about in various Mustang magazines, predominently Mustang Monthly. So you've probably read about it before but
here is a little more from an actual experience.
