I`m converting the 71 Duster drum brake over to a 73 disc, I can`t remember it`s been so long since I gathered the parts as to whether the caliber goes on the front or the rear of the rotor? I know I`ve heard that it will go either way but which is correct? Thanks Mark

I beleive caliper goes to front so your brake hoses route okay.

I was thinking front to, but then I read somewhere that the engineers like the caliber in the rear, the more I read the more I get you know what I mean? Does anyone have any pic`s of a suspension for a A body? I`m building this on a work bench then taking down to the shop next weekend to install in the car it would be nice to use as a reference just to make sure I have everything right to head off any delay`s when installing in the car.

If you have pre 73' sway bar it will hit the caliber if you mount it in front of the rotor. To avoid that you can mount it at rear of the rotor, and use longer brake hoses.
I believe that F-bodys brake hoses can be used.

Maybe thats where the confusion started for me. Guy`s where swapping the caliber to make the original sway bar work. Aren`t the 67-72 center links different from a 73-76? On my 69 dart the inner tie rods grease fitting is pointing towards the front bumber, on the 73 suspension they are pointing towards the hood.

Post deleted by Dart270

On my 70 Swinger...I did the conversion, using a 73 Swinger disc car as a donor.

I kept the original 70/V-8 K member and just ordered a new Moog pitman, new idler, new adjusters and tie rod ends---for a 70 Swinger.(Some opt for C body Ties are they are beefier) Ordered a polygraphite kit from PST,for a 70 Dart--- along with all new Moog balljoints, all the way round, for a 73 Dart as the Upper ball joints are larger(Reason why you can't use the original 70-72 UCA's anyway), Moog OEM style LCA bushing(the one that's a pain to remove)--vs using Poly there. The poly in the LCA bushing is a potluck affair....some have luck, others do not.

Parts used from the 73 donor were basically just the upper and lower control arms, strut rods, the spindles + the prop. valve. I also used the 73's power brake setup, as my car was drum as well. You can do just as well with just a manual disc master cylinder and Mopar Performance and others sell an adjustable brake rod for the brake pedal. I didn't have to use the 73 lower control arms, but my both the 73 LCA's and 70 LCA's were without swaybar tabs at all, so opted for the 73 arms for my assurance. I found some 71 LCA's that were bent, but the original swaybar tabs were still intact, so cut off and welded them onto the 73 LCA's. Since these swaybar "tabs" were mounted/welded in like the earlier A bodies(outboard of the arms themselves), I had to mount the caliper's rearward. I put in an original OEM sway setup. If I'm not mistaken, the earlier A bodies with the "original" 4 piston Kesley-Hayes front disc setups, also had their calipers rear mounted. The later A bodies(73 up) had a shorter Swaybar than the earlier A's and thus they mounted the swaybar tabs more inboard on the Lower Control arms. That coupled with the sway actually passing thru the K, rather in front of it as on the earlier A's... allowed forward facing single piston calipers.

Caliper wise....I found for me that 80 Volare' calipers and hoses seemed to work best, but you have to file out the hose brackets slightly to fit the hoses. Ya have to have the bleeder as high as possible on the caliper, and some of the later Dart calipers didn't seem to work well for me--think I tried a 76 Dart caliper, either way..the 80 Volare hose/caliper seemed to me, the best way to go. Someone advised me to try the 80 Volare stuff....seems good to me.

I ordered new rotors, bearings, pads, brake hardware kit, etc.

I used the 73 strut rods for 2 reasons. 1..the washers seem larger for the 73-vs-70. Even though both the 70/73 strut rods are the same length/thickness, etc....the 70 has fine thread(which would be stronger I quess)..but with using poly strut rod bushings, the 70 strut rod setup would not squeeze down far enough to place in those "safety roll pins". The 73 strut rods seems to have that hole drilled further up, so I went that route and put in the pins. I quess I could have just redrilled the 70 strut rods though.

In the attachment...this is a 80 Volare' hose, with a 76 Dart caliper. Notice how low the bleeder is, which caused me some headaches trying to get my brakes to bleed properly. Put in the 80 Volare calipers(noted in pict where the 80 volare's bleeder is to the 76 Dart caliper)..and all went well.

Well....I though my picture had a note attached. Anyway...it's a 80 volare' hose with a 76 Dart caliper. You can see how low the bleeder is. The 80 Volare caliper has it's bleeder higher up and all I had to do, once I changed out the caliper, was gravity bleed the system to get a hard brake pedal. Brake pumping nor gravity would give a hard pedal with the 76 Dart calipers, as shown in the picture.

Now..if you don't plan on using a swaybar setup, you can just keep the spindles in their original positions so the calipers face forward, use 73 single piston calipers, hoses, etc. I also believe if you even plan to run an aftermarket swaybar on your setup, later on...you'll still need to mount the calipers rearward.

I have an original 73 with discs. I can take a look at it and let you know. I think they are mounted to the rear but I will have to look to be sure.

Originally, they were mounted on the front, but as other posters have stated, IF you try to use the earlier swaybar, it will interfere..
I think KINGMOPAR's post above pretty much sums up the best way to convert the earlier cars over using the earlier bar setup...unless you're gonna go to the newer K-member etc., then just bring it all across....

I'm pretty sure that if it's a 73 A body, the calipers will be forward mounted.(at least every one I've seen is) They changed the K member in 73, for different/better motor mounts and also changed the K to allow the swaybar to pass through a groove in the K and moved the swaybar tabs inboard on the LCA's. This allowed a shorter length swaybar and allowed this swaybar system to work with forward facing calipers.

Yep...KINGMOPAR is dead on....
I'm looking at the '73 service manual as I type this and just walked back up from the shop where there is an original '73 Sport sitting on jackstands.......they're forward mounted...and the setup is as he describes above.
I've been tempted on my '72 Swinger to convert it completely to the '73 setup, but haven't done it....yet.

I think I may have been the first one to use the '80 Volare calipers...They worked great on my car with the '80 volare hoses.

http://duster.moparpages.com/disk_swap.htm

I thought it might have been U Gold that gave me the 80 Volare' tip --thanks!

On the K members....it gets even better and I had to confide in Mark Nixon to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Went to a All-Mopar Boneyard and went to pick up a Pre73 A body Sway setup. There in front of me, lay a A body K, biscuit mounts, large bulky piece of a K, just like my 70 A body K member......but to my surprise, it had 73 style sway tabs on the LCA's and a short sway bar, mounted EXACTLY like a 73 setup would have been, so Lgjhn, since ya have the book in front of ya....can imagine how "strange" this may have looked. There were however, 2 triangle shaped "pass-thru" holes stamped in this K, to allow the shorter swaybar to pass thru. After talking to Mark Nixon, it seems that sometime in 72, MA tried doing some work on some of the earlier K members, to accept the later styled short swaybar setups, so can chaulk that up as a rare find. Mark stated he'd seen a few of those himself, rather strange looking pieces

So....Lgjhn....seems ya can cutout some triangle shaped pass-thru holes, add a later style sway setup with later inboard arms, do the mounting like a 73(with calipers forward).....and still be factory correct. Wish I had taken some pictures of the darn thing. Even after seeing that....I still put my calipers rearward and used a 70-71 longer swaybar, with the outboard swaytabs on the arms.

Wow....now that would mess my mind up to come across that setup... Only one of my '72s has the swaybar (Demon 340) but ya got me curious now.....
I'm going back to the shop here in a few minutes (the sun has gone down and it's a bit cooler) to resume work on the '73 Sport. It was over 100 degrees in there this afternoon and I had to take a break (what better place than Moparts...thanks Tom!!).
When I get down there, I'm gonna have to take a peek at the sway bar under the Demon just to make sure...It should be the early style as it has an early manufacturing date. I think I verified that awhile back before I bought a set of spare LCAs for it....but now you gonna make me go look

Yea....the darn thing struck me kinda funny as well.......as those biscuit mounts were sitting right in my face, plain as day....but the sway bar was later design--WTF?? The gent who owned the yard told me he had just pulled the entire setup outta a 72 Dart, the day before.

Like stated, it seems like they cut/stamped 2 very large triangle shaped holes, on either side of the beefier part of the K member, to allow that shorter swaybar to pass thru. Like stated, wish I had taken a picture of one.

Mark Nixon....next time you run across one of these things....take a snapshot of one of these please --I sure will

I was wrong, looked at the 73 dart and the calipers are mounted torwards the front.

Looked at the swabar setup on the Demon.... It's the long style bar... ....kinda figured it would be. IF you stumble across a pic of one of those odd-ball setups, I'd like to see it.
While looking at the K-member and the way the bar is set up, I can see where a gussetted cut could probably be done in such a manner as to use the shorter bars.... I'd be kinda wary of cutting out that big a chunk on the K-member anyway.... I think I'd probaby do what you did: get an early set of tabs and weld em onto the newer LCA.

Now that U mention it Clair....as it's been quite awhile ago since I redid my frontend.......I remember trying to trim the inner sleeve(about an 1/8th off of each) while trying to fit the 70 strut rods, basically trying to make them(2 piece poly units) compress to the same dimension that the old rubber units used to be. The Poly kits make ya use the old steel inserts for the strut rod bushings, but due to their makeup, will NOT compress as the rubber units--I hear Moog has a less than popular design out now as well in rubber, I'd rather have the 2 piece types. I checked both the 70 and 73 strut rods that I had on hand. Each were the same length, washer stops in the same locations. The only difference I saw was where the safety pin hole locations were in reference to the rods, size of the washers that cupped the rubber bushings(concave side towards the rubber)...and of course the 73 rods were course threads for the nut that goes through the K.....while the 70's were fine thread. I think Energy Suspension offers the Poly units with their own steel inserts inside. I haven't noticed any movement with the 1/8 trimmed off. My quess when I finally get all the weight back on and front end finally aligned, will I find out if I messed up or not via doing the 1/8 in trim--but everything seem s tight as a glove.