A little A-body disc brake swap factoid I found out today...

[bull]

I've never heard of this until today but it makes sense to me. If you swap the disc brake calipers side to side to avoid sway bar interference you may have trouble getting the air out of the brake system because the bleeder valves end up on the bottom of the calipers instead of the top. This means you'll most likely have an air pocket in the calipers trapped above the bleeder valve that cannot be gotten rid of. Sooooo, time to buy an aftermarket sway bar I guess.

[is_it_EVER_done?]

Can't you just swap the spindles side for side like is done on a B body? I know nothing about A bodies since the last one I owned was around 1974, but I don't see why spindle swaping would be a problem.

[Troy]

He's talking about putting the A-body brakes on a B-body. I'm not sure how the calipers managed to get upside down though since I thought the entire spindle would be swapped to the other side (which means it spins/rotates horizontally instead of flipping over). Maybe I'm wrong on that. According to the Mopar Action article you need to buy a new sway bar.

Troy

[Chryco Psycho]

exactly , if you put the calipers on the rear & use the left caliper on the right side the bleeder is still on top  I have found you will need to be creative with the brake line like this though as the line is too short so you need to use a Van one if  I remember right 

[bull]

Not sure without actually looking at the car but I know they will only go on two ways, either calipers to the front when installed as designed or calipers to the back when swapped side to side. According to this pic of my driver's side this caliper needs to stay on this side but be moved to the front so the bleeder valve is on top, which would require that the spindles be swapped side to side. If I were to put this caliper on the passenger's side along with the spindle the bleeder valve would still be on the bottom, as Troy has pointed out. Or, I can just leave the spindles and swap the calipers side to side so that they are still to the back but my bleeder valve goes to the top along with my hose and banjo fitting (which will probably screw up my nice hose routing).

[Chryco Psycho]

so you basically have no brakes now

[bull]

Basically. It's not a huge issue at the moment because the car rarely moves but I'm pretty sure they will never bleed properly with the bleeder valves on the bottom. I just thought I'd share this info because I've never heard it said by anyone until today. The guy I left my car with said he figured it out on another Mopar that always had a mushy brake peddle until they moved the valves to the top.

[Mfr426]

Hey Bull, I did the same swap on my 69 w' a 73 dart setup. The calipers wont bleed and will just leak in the down position (I'm pretty sure). I think I put the left calipers on the right and visa versa to correct for that. This was about 5 years ago and a I dink quite a bit so you might want to eyeball it first before you take anything off. 

I did however manage to get mine in the "up" position though.

Please post any resolution!

MIke

[is_it_EVER_done?]

OK, now I understand your question after seeing the picture. You have the calipers on the wrong sides. Swap the calipers side for side (assuming you wanted to front mount the calipers), and the bleeders will magically appear on the top . Or swap the spindles side for side (much preferred in my opinion) and rear mount the calipers. If you rear mount them, just get brake hoses specked for the 73-74 Charger (which were made for the rear mount configuration and fit perfectly). Then you can keep your stock sway bar.

[blue69]

Putting the calipers on the rear is not a problem if using slider calipers. Just use a caliper designed to rear mounted like a 80 volare caliper. The bleeder is located at the top when rear mounted. You could sell you adapters easily and buy slider brackets without spending extra money, since the pin type seems to be valuable. The volare calipers were very cheap, but then you would still be out calipers and pads, and hoses. I've seen rear mounted calipers installed like yours before so there might be a way to bleed them. A member kekoakeakane installed them on his car the same way and posted pictures on the old board and moparts.

[bull]

Putting the calipers on the rear is not a problem if using slider calipers. Just use a caliper designed to rear mounted like a 80 volare caliper. The bleeder is located at the top when rear mounted. You could sell you adapters easily and buy slider brackets without spending extra money, since the pin type seems to be valuable. The volare calipers were very cheap, but then you would still be out calipers and pads, and hoses. I've seen rear mounted calipers installed like yours before so there might be a way to bleed them. A member kekoakeakane installed them on his car the same way and posted pictures on the old board and moparts.

He's the one I consulted when doing mine. I wish he was still around. How did you remember to spell his user name?

[Chryco Psycho]

Kekoakeakane