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I had my buddy Ryan who owns Ballis Welding in Fresno, work on my stalled '52 Suburban project yesterday. It took us about 4 hours to relocate and install Rusty Hope's front shock setup, where the top shock mount is attached to the frame, not the upper A-arm. Everything went pretty smoothly- we had to do some minor alterations like drilling out the lower eyelet bushings from 1/2" to 5/8", and tack weld - check clearances - cycle suspension up and down, then cut out tacks and reposition. Since Rusty says to find the center of travel on the shock and the motor was out, (not at the normal ride height), we set the wagon on front jack stands and used the heavy front bucket on my tractor to artificially move the front end up and down. That worked great! It seemed to me that it would be so much easier to do the work with the motor out and the front clip off. Although his instructions were very good, it wasn't clear to me exactly what issues would come up until we got into it. Depending on the angle we positioned the mount, the side of the shock would bind up at certain ride heights. We were able to make certain that wouldn't happen by using the tractor bucket. You can see the finished system in the short video. Pretty fun stuff! My Movie.mp4

Need to make a decision and move forward in regards to a front brake decision.///stay oem drum and shoe, convert to disc,...Scarebird ?? As previously stated in the forum, the customer service associated with Mr Akers alias "Old Daddy/Rusty Hope" is absolutely second to none, really good communication and a good product, we just shared a couple emails on this subject, and he mentioned how much he thought of the folks here on the forum - really nice fella. however I do like the method utilized by Scarebird, which allows the car to be easily converted back to stock in the future, if desired....due to the lack of drilling and tapping. Trying not to box myself in on this, that said - the plan for now is to replace all brake lines, kit the oem mastercylinder and re-use it...(the oem brakes on this car did work when I purchased it and then immediately parked it and began taking her apart...master cylinder was not dripping, etc..but obviously I will take it apart and go through it...) ANYONE OUT THERE RUNNING A SCARBIRD DISC KIT UP FRONT WITH THE STOCK OEM MASTER CYLINDER....... 1946 p15 Plymouth Club Coupe ?? I've seen on Scarebirds ebay web site, where the question was asked of them, " will the disc kit that fits the 46-48 Plymouth 10" drum, 3 hole spindle,....work with the oem mastercylinder ?" and the ebay answer/reply back was YES... I realize my capitalized letters question above would be best answered by the Scarebird company itself,...but maybe some of my forum member brake guru's who've been there, done it, and "got the T-shirt can provide some real world experience and knowledge to my on-going mopar education..... From the forum archives I've learned enough to be dangerous, .... regarding valves, the master cylinder's elevation in respect to the wheel cylinder or caliper, etc....great info., but what I'm specifically reaching for here is in regards to the bore size of the oem master cylinder in conjunction with the Scarebird disc's,......I guess in the end just looking for a brake pedal that doesn't take an excessive amount of force and should last with proper fluid maintenance and normal driving conditions. Thanks in advance for the help, all replies encouraged and welcomed. (Chuck thank you for your patience with me in regards to this, I appreciate it),... Steve

Was looking at wheels/rims etc and started to wonder about how hard compatible brake parts would be to find for my '47 Dodge Sedan. I see many posts about disc brakes, and mentioning of a 'Rusty Hope Disc Brake Conversion Kit'... not sure if the best route or not so figured I'd ask: - Are drum parts for my car easy to find? (USA model, but I'm in Canada) - Is it worth while to convert to disc? - Any advantages towards being able to find rims? (ie, higher offset, lug pattern change) - How difficult is it? Like is the kit a full kit? or a kit that has a few parts, the rest of the conversion requires chopping the front end off another car or something?

Here's somepics from where I installed the new kit from Rusty Hope. Everything went together really easily and fits great. The rotors, bearings, lug nuts, drill bit, and calipers only cost about $250 dollars. Here's my pics of the install. The picture of the top of the king pin shows how the grease caps for the plymouth are smaller than the opening. Guess I have to make some calls to find the upper cap.