Imperial big brakes

Pick up a copy of my B-body book on Amazon and it will show you how to build a custom big brake kit. There are a lot of ocmponents available to pick from. Viper calipers would be an obvious choice but you could go with other OEM calipers or Baer if you want to go aftermarket.

I'll get it now. What is the exact title? I called brembo and Wilwood. They both laughed at me.

I got it man!

Yes let us know if you come up with something. Brake parts for the imperials are damn impossible to find!!

Here is a C-body kit that I used to build. Something like this would probably work on an Imperial without too much work. Figure on spending about $2000 if you have a machine shop build these parts for you.

With great respect for AndyF other than the caliper nothing else there will work(I don't think). Been awhile since I messed with these brain cells but for sure the Imperial used larger wheel bearings than the C bodies as well as different ball joints and if that was not enough I don't think you can get a Mopar Al Wilwood hub with enough meat on it to drill a 5x5 pattern.

Now, if you don't mind running 4.5x5 in the front and 5x5 in the rear you might be able to fake it out and replace everything between the upper and lower arms in the front (might have to change the upper arm??) and then you would have "normal" C body brakes available to you. You would want to use late '72-'73 C body stuff, the non-Budd brakes. But then you are back with just factory brakes and still going to have to work hard to put something more/better/bigger together. Add a rear axle shaft and rear brakes swap out to the list if you want everything at 4.5x5.

Check out Imperialclub.com and here http://www.imperialclub.com/Repair/Brakes/mike.htm for a Toyoda Supra brake rotor ideas. Still not big brakes but you might get some ideas.

Yeah the whole front clip on this car is different than a c body. The sway bar is different. The spindles use a conventional type press in ball joint on the bottom. The top is a screw in large Chrysler. In that flic above I was replacing the uca bushings, I made some solid steel ones work because that's as close as I could get, stock parts are not available. I've figured if I wanted to keep the car on the road when the brakes are gone I'd get some spindles fabricated and run some circle track parts with 5x5 hubs, but that would probably be two thousand bucks or so

And hey to the OP post some pictures of your '69!!

As stated earlier, no front suspension parts are shared between the C bodies and the Imperials.

Guys need to remember that not only are the bolt patterns larger but the hub diameter and center register are larger as well.

Going larger on the brakes is easier on a 69 and earlier than my 72. His car uses a separate hub and rotor. The rotor itself bolts onto the back of the hub using a 5 x 4-1/2 bolt pattern. If he can find the proper offset rotor (like the old Supra mentioned above) he can simply bolt it on and go. Naturally, this does not address the caliper. That mount will have to be fabricated.

I haven't looked into it a great deal but I did scare up a 69 front hub to check things out.

The point of the picture I posted is that those were all custom built parts. I built the hub in the picture to fit a C-body spindle. I could just as easily build a hub to fit an Imperial spindle. All I would need to do is change a few dimensions for the bearings and hit the go button. Same thing with the caliper adapter. Just figure out where the centerline of the rotor is, check the bolt pattern on the knuckle and carve out the adapter. Changing the bolt pattern on the hub takes 60 seconds on the CAD system. Want to use a Porsche caliper rather than a Viper caliper, fine. Change the bolt pattern, raise the caliper adapter and you're finished.

I should be clear and say that I don't build custom big brake kits anymore. So I'm not trying to drum up any business, I'm just saying that it is fairly easy to build a custom kit once you have the correct frame of reference. Since the hubs are custom it doesn't matter that an Imperial is different than a C-body. All that matters is what the bearing bore diameters are and what the spacing between them is. Then you need to know the bolt pattern, the diameter for the rotor center, the centerline for the rotor and the hub seal diamter. Once you know those dimesions the hub designs itself on the CAD system.

Like I said before, I don't build these anymore but guys like Kore3 build custom hubs. Baer builds custom hubs if you know who to talk to. DoctorDiff can build custom stuff, etc. If you have the money you can get the job done. You should really pick the wheels first though since the wheel design will drive the brake design. Ideally you'll want a 17 inch rim with plenty of caliper clearance.

Andy, those are good points but instead of going through all of that he can get the specs of a wheel he likes and search rotor sizes that will bolt to the back of his existing hub.

Much cheaper way to go.

That's the route I'm going to go with. A big brake kit from an aftermarket company. Using the stock hub. Viper calipers would be killer.

Remember that your biggest problem with wheel fitment will not be diameter. The fixed calipers with multiple pistons stick way out past the wheel mounting surface of the hub. In fact, the calipers on my hot rod stuck out farther than the lug studs.
The back of the wheel has to poke in far enough to reach the hub while the spokes sweep outwards all the way to the rim of the wheel.

My Boyd Coddington Smoothie II wheels had to be cast with an extra 1-1/2" thick pad on the mounting surface. The centers were then welded into the rim and extra 1-1/2" farther out to make the backspacing work. That didn't give me much clearance but it worked.

Post deleted by not_a_charger

My 69s had the 4 piston calipers.My 70s had singles.I know for sure my one 70 had a GM rotor on the front.It was there when I got the car and was still on 3 years later when I sold it.One of the hardest things to find especially on 70s is unbroken front turn lens.Seems they got broke a lot.I saved a set for my 70 and a set for my 69.Still wish I had the cars.Rocky

A 69 Coupe is what I really wanted but they are hard to find.

When I got a good deal on the crew cab I jumped on it.

Here is a pic of my 69 where it sat for years in the desert of Oregon. Its now in NY working on its accent

Nice.

What kind of options did it have?

Once of the reasons I jumped on mine was the way the car was built. It had everything and was triple black.

I had a 70 2 door.Thing had almost 200K when the odometer quit.The guy I got it from drove it for almost 3 years after that and I drove it for almost another 3 years as daily driver.Still ran good and had a super solid body.No one wanted it so I pulled the drive train and scraped what was left of the carcass.Paid 125 fo it and got 500 for the 440 another 150 scrap for the shell.My kid now says he should have kept it.Mine was loaded with almost every option.Rocky

Should have kept it if it wasn't rusted out.

Yessss!!! There will be lots of beer for Carlisle Eric!!! Its kinda low on the options list man. She has zero rust. I mean none. The interior is wasted. I'll tackle that but one thing at a time. I'm going to clear coat over the patina paint. Put a new top on it. Big brakes and big wheels will be killer.....oh yeah and a turbo.