Greetings Peter!
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Originally Posted by Globie64
Has anyone upgraded the brakes on their vintage tow car to a discs/dual circuit system? I'm lusting after a '64 Chrysler pillarless hardtop wagon, but the all-drum brakes and our hilly terrain give me pause. I wonder how an early Toronado would work...
Peter
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You have located one of my favorite station wagons! The 1960s Chrysler pillarless wagons were always one of my special favorites -- and the 1964s were the last year for the push-button automatic. You have identified the precise reason that I quit utilizing my '65 Dodge Coronet 500 Convertible as a tow vehicle -- the single circuit master cylinder and four-wheel drum brakes. I have the disc brake/tandem circuit master cylinder upgrade in its future -- the parts run about $1,800 for the conversion (basically everything in the braking system is new). A photo of my '65 is below (I have owned this car for more than 31 years -- the Nomad is long-gone but was less than a year old when the photo was taken in early 1981):
The 1966-1978 GM full-size front-wheel-drive cars typically had trailer tow rating of approximately 6,000 pounds when equipped with the proper options. The down-side is that any weight taken off of the front wheels can result in "unusual" handling -- mine ('75 Eldorado Convertible) likes to spin its front wheels if when taking off from a stop if there is any grade (the workaround has been to tighten the weight distribution bars by one or two links). It is also VERY difficult to find a car with four good wheels, and even more difficult to find a good replacement -- I finally gave up after looking for more than two years (and finding only two good wheels) and ordered a set of Boyd Coddington custom wheels -- that still required some modifications to obtain an interference-free fit. It also seems that there were only two final drive ratios offered for the FWD '66-'78 Eldorado/Tornado platform -- 3.07 and 2.70 (the 2.70 was evidently adopted as standard in 1973 and ran through 1978 -- really limits the performance with coaches near the maximum trailer tow rating). A photo of my Eldorado with the Overlander is below -- the photo was taken about two years ago before I moved from the Quad Cities:
Good luck with your search!
Kevin