Please Allow Me To Interject A Bit Of Levity Here,
C'mon boys, let's play nice. There are enough turds in the sandbox for everybody to have at least one or two. When I first posted a question about a Maverick, I didn't expect anyone to give a rat's toockus about whether it was original, period correct or any of that, after all, this is a Mustang site, I'm just thankful for informed and thoughtful replies. I, for one, applaud all of you folks who spend your time, effort, $$$ and skills coming up with new ways to skin a cat and make our cars safer and more personalized with choices/options for different levels/types of performance. When I first became interested in Hot-Rodding, the pastime wasn't about laying down a pile of $$$$ to get "just what you wanted" or a pile of chrome goodies, but more of going out to a buddy's uncle's/grandfather's junkpile to figure out what you could make work/fit and giving him a case of beer or such to let you take what you thought you could use/modify for your purposes. For what it's worth, my question was brought up from my own thoughts of using my Maverick spindles to allow the use of cool 4 piston calipers on my 68 Mustang "Hot Rod" while taking my lighter duty 68 spindles and single piston calipers to use on my wife's soon to be daily driver, 71 Maverick, 250-6 cylinder with an AOD. Interchange and swapping is what it's all about and a day will come when the only way we'll be able to continue to enjoy our old rides is to be inventive, imaginative but above all, SAFE. We're all supposed to friends here, and should treat each other as such without trying to piddle on each others' parades. Opinions are wonderful, but remember, like other human parts, "everybody's got one"!
Love Ya, (in the worst way)
Gene
It would be great if everyone would "play nice", as you say, but Dan [Chockostang] chooses not to work well with others --and by others, meaning he doesn't like any form of competition that might possibly take a sale away from him. He purposely gives convoluted information out to make his competitors look bad in order to try and make himself look good. You don't have to take my word for it. You can search on this forum, or any other related forum, where the subject is disc brake swaps and what his comments have been.
Truth-be-told, I couldn't care less about "originality" when it comes to older Mustangs. I have a lot of modifications that have been done, or are in the works, on my own '68 Mustang that are far from "stock" or "period-correct".
I only seized upon this opportunity when Dan snared himself, by his own words, and what he's been preaching against when it comes to putting "wrong" parts on particular applications. It seems to only be "wrong" if it's done with his competitior's offerings, but not wrong in cases if it is done with what Chocko himself sells.
I've been a member on this site [and other related sites] for a very long time now. I don't think post counts are an accurate number representing what a person knows, but they are an accurate indicator of how many times a person has made a post there. My post count here is over 1,000. In some of those posts, I have said something in promotion of what I sell. In some of them, it was to promote what
someone else sells. Some were on general topics completely unrelated to Mustangs at all. Often times, my reply was to give information not even related to brakes and I knew ahead of time my time and effort replying would have no potential of earning me a single dime for my help. Check Dan's post history and see how many times he has simply offered useful information to help someone on something that wasn't even related to brake systems vs. how many times it had to do with the possiblity of him getting a sale off someone. [That shouldn't take too long].
Dan has also made posts against me and several others who have designed/produced their own adaptive means ["homemade" parts, as Dan put it, in an effort to demean the product] to adapt later model disc brake components onto the older Mustangs & related Fords. Disregard that these are [at least in my case] Ford, time tested and proven components and have proven to be both highly effective and highly reliable in operation in their adaptive existences. Dan claims people like me won't be here 30 years from now and where would the customer get replacement parts from? In my case, the reality is the brake parts are Ford [Lincoln Mk VII, SN95 Mustang V6/GT & SN95 Cobra rear disc brake parts]. The main thing I offer is the adaptive means to put the Ford brake parts on the end of the rear end housing --the brackets. The brackets I produce are a non-wear item so they aren't going to wear out, whether I'm still around or not. The brake parts themselves are Ford. Pretty good chance they will still be available through parts stores or from the internet.
Dan claims the K/H reproductions of the early Mustang front discs have been around for 30 or more years and will be around for 30 more, to encourage people to stay away from what anyone else offers. He does this to create the illusion and doubt in people's mind that only what he has will be around and what everyone else has won't be. If you can still get a disc brake rotor [or any other related part] for a 45-year old Mustang today, there's a real good chance someone will be able to get a 13" SN95 Cobra rotor [for example] 30-years from now, especially since the SN95 Mustangs are much more popular than the vintage Mustangs. However, I don't think Dan is a wizard with a crystal-ball. We might have a good idea what will happen tomorrow but since tomorrow hasn't happened yet, we can't say with 100% certainty what will or will not be. --Let alone, trying to predict what will be in 30-years from now. GM was a giant that almost fell --had it not been rescued at the tax-payers expense, it would be gone now. IF SSBC falls on economic troubles bad enough to force it out of business, it isn't going to get the same taxpayer dollars [as GM], to save it. --There goes their production of replacement parts and the collapse of its network of dealers for them.
Here's my take on the Chocko situation; Up until about 10 years ago, early Mustang & related Ford owners had basically two options if they wanted to upgrade their drums to discs: expensive arftermarket or wrecking yard solutions. There wasn't really an affordable in-between solution. There were people like Wilwood, Baer, or SSBC [and their network of associated dealers, like Dan] offering setups that were custom brake systems, or replicas of older Ford brakes sytems. The price tag for these systems are often out of reach of many "average" Mustangers on a tight budget.
The second option Mustang owners had, up until about 10 years ago, was to find disc brake components from wrecking yard donors. Dan was among an elite few dealers up to this point, who offered a new front disc brake conversion for Mustangers and related Ford owners. Up until a decade ago, he was pretty much on top of the heap -so-to-speak, but then people like me and my company, Ultrastang.com, and Steve Wilkes of MustangSteve.com, John Dinkle of Opentracker.com, Shaun Burgess of StreetorTrack.com, and Dennis Ginsberg of DiscBrakeSwap.com, as well as a number of others, began to emerge and offer adaptive disc brake solutions, or quality reproductions of Ford designed disc brake systems, that are generally much less than what it cost to purchase the SSBC brake system. This is when the ground began to erode under Dan's feet and he began to lose sales to other people's offerings.
No longer being at the top-of-the heap, Dan's tactics had to turn to saying things like;"homemade", for instance, in order to make it sound like an inferior product to try and sway potential customers away from the 'new guys on the block' and back towards what he was selling. Or, if it was someone else's reproduction of actual Ford brake setups [Granada], he was saying that they were "wrong" and not "period-correct" and so forth to try and keep the sale of them from happening.
He touts the K/H discs as being "bigger" than the Granada. While they are, I also refuted the fact that they are only
marginally bigger. His list of half-truths and misinformation goes on and on --which again, you don't have to take my word for it, you can search the archived messages at this and various related sites to see the words directly from 'the man himself'. As I've said before, there's room in this hobby for all of us that offer some type of brake system for sale. Chockostang tries to present himself as a good ol' boy just looking out for the interest of the [potential] customer. The only thing he is looking out for is relieving you of the dollars in your pocketbook to place them in his own, whether this means giving someone factual information, half truth information, flat out lying or slamming someone else's product to make his own look better is of no concern to him.
And here again, in reality, I wasn't even advising you to buy from
anyone here. My actual opinion would be for you to go to a wrecking yard and get the parts you need off a disc-equipped Maverick or off a '75-'80 Granada/Monarch, since they have the same disc brakes that were used on the Mavericks. I gave you the facts as to what brakes were a viable option for your Maverick. It also turns out that what I recommended is actually the "correct" style brakes for it. The choice remains yours in what type brakes you run, "correct" or "incorrect", and whether you buy them new from some brake supplier, or whether you circumvent all this by going to a wrecking yard and pulling what you need, yourself.