Back in the late '60's, when Hot Rod mag. was a slightly more reliable source of info, they had a short article about putting '65-67 Full size Ford disc brakes on T birds. These brakes are Kelsey-Hayes 4 piston calipers with 11" 1.25" vented rotors, they are big, heavy and will really stop the car. They require special wheels to clear the big calipers. The calipers bolt to the spindle forging that is integral with the steering arm. The forging puts the ball joints at exactly distance to match the original 2 piece spindle and steering arm and may also lower the car a little. A shim is needed in the lower hole for the tapered ball joint bolt. It was pretty much a bolt in swap with the usual hose issues etc.

But what the article didn't mention was that the '67 steering arm is longer than the stock T bird arm whichwould havethe effect of slowing the already slow steering down even more. So I made a jig that held the spindles and cut about 2" (from memory now) out of the steering arms effectively shortening them to less than the length of the stock arms. I had the pieces professionally welded in a certified welding shop. Since the '67 arm is about twice as thick as the '55 arm I didn't get concerned about welding although it is not a good idea to weld on steering parts if it can be avoided.I did not change the pitman, idler arm, tie rods or any other chassis parts. This change would work with either power or manual steering, mine is manual.

I wouldn't do it this way again but I built this all in the early '70s and there were no Granadas then.The brakes are more than sufficient for the car but they are heavy. The Granada/Monarch setup is a better match for the T bird and pass car and even though they are pretty rare these days they are more common the the earlier stuff. But I don't know anything about their steering arms so I don't know if it is necessary toshorten it to speed up the steeringor if the steering is OK with the Granada spindles. There are quite a few cars with Granada spindles and brakes on them these days so someone knows how they steer.

BTW there was some discussion recently of what front endpieces the T birds have. It issure that the spindles, upper and lower A arms ball joints etc are the same for 55 to '57 T-birds and '54 -' 56 Fords and Merc pass cars.It istrue that '57 T birds have different front suspension pieces than '57 Fords.