After driving my '74 thing around for a while it became evident that the stock brakes needed work. I rebuilt the whole brake system from front to rear and side to side. I used new German drums in the rear, Brazillian in the front, German wheel cylinders, German hoses and new shoes of domestic remanufacture. After running on the new brakes I still wasn't happy with their performance and with an engione upgrade in mind I decided to upgrade the front to disk brakes.
I purchased the disk brake conversion kit from Vince at Things unlimited. One thing to remember when using the kit is that you can't use the stock Thing wheels and may want to go with 15" wheels in order to clear the calipers and gain a little ground clearance at the same time. One could probably use 4 lug wheels with only the spacer but I already had the 5 lug 15" Centerlines so the next order of business was to get the 4 to 5 lug adapters from a VW parts house. I got mine from Wolfgang International. The adapters also need to be spaced out ~3/8" in order to clear the calipers. I had a 1/2" thick adapter made at a local machine shop where I was doing a lot of business so the cost was low. I had it made the same OD as the disk hub and decided to change to wheel studs all the way around to make it easier to install the wheels and strengthen the assembly. I was a little leary of using bolts as I had just had one pull out from the old drum, but that was due to inferior cast Brazillian parts. The conversion is really straightforward and only takes a couple of hours to complete. I suggest a good technical repair manual such as the Bentley manual for the Beetle and Karman Ghia.
One thing that would be nice to have is a backing plate and I am looking into this as an add-on. After running on this set-up for a couple of years I noticed that the adapter and spacer had rusted and was concerned about the galvanic corrosion and it's potential effect on the aluminum wheels. I decided to tear the assembly down and get the parts powdercoated. I will have the rest of the components coated at the next maintenance tear down.
So how do I like the conversion? I love it! The car really brakes well now and this is a good step to do prior to any engine/performance upgrade. Remember to always start with the brakes when doing a performance upgrade lest you end up like James Dean!
If you would like to get a conversion kit call Vince at Things unlimited.
©1997-2003, Thomas M. Ainlay
