Disc Brakes & Power Steering - The initial Tear Down

Once late January 2020 came I'm ready to work on the '66 again, having completed a long list of things for my '69 Mach I. 

The plan was to tackle the conversion of the front drum brakes to disc and add a two bowl master cylinder with a proportioning valve. A nice safety enhancement. All this comes in a nice kit that I ordered from CJ Pony Parts.  As much stuff as I've bought over the years for the Mustangs they must think I'm some sort of restoration shop. Anyway, what I ordered is here.

While I had the master cylinder and brakes lines out it made sense to put in the power steering kit at the same time. The power steering kit requires a new clutch z-bar. I also need the z-bar bushing kit, but I wouldn't realize that until a couple of weeks later when I finally figured out how to get the z-bar out.

All this seemed like a bit of a challenge but nothing new to me. And let the fun begin!

Removed the front brake drums by taking out the outer bearings. The brake drums are pressed onto the race (or should be - not so much on the right side for me) and you can't just pull the drums off like you can on the rear.

Unbolt the backing plate from the spindle and disconnect the brake line, which is stripped or will strip, I promise. I think the fittings are brass. Channellock pliers work great here when it does strip. I'm replacing them so who cares?

All that crap in the drip pan.....is mud and grease we scraped off the ball joints ... and now this is a restoration. All the ball joints are crap, the steering tie rods are missing the rubber boots in places. Great. Damn. I'm rebuilding yet another front end and I didn't expect it needed it from how it drove. 

I really didn't want to tear this car apart. I did that to my '73 17 years ago and it's still apart. Oh well. Off we go. I figured might as well go all in and just get this done. I knew we had to take the interior apart to get at the floor pans anyway. 

The fun part of removing the old manual steering box is you have to cut the steering shaft unless you remove the engine. I'm about to make a really good new friend....

First we removed the master cylinder so there was plenty of room to get at the steering shaft. The trick here was that the brake push rod is not coming out of the old single bowl master cylinder. We had to disconnect it from the inside at the brake pedal. There is a trick to getting the stupid clip off that holds it. My method was destroy the damn thing. It will just pop up but the one here was broken and when I popped it up many pieces fell down. 

The rubber boot you see in the picture is the clutch bar and the steering shaft is already cut just to the left of that. My new friend is a Dewalt angle grinder with cutoff wheel. It took 30 seconds to cut the shaft with this thing. Incredible. I've only used that tool for grinding before now. I was missing out on some serious fun.

Everything is out for the initial job. Time to order all the suspension and steering parts. BUT WAIT! Car parts are made in what country? You know the one that was the first to get COVID-19? Yes, China. Getting parts during a pandemic will be fun!