At this stage of the game, Debby decided that even before the body repairs commenced, her dad's truck was going to get upgraded with a braking system that would allow it to survive on today's streets.
The full-custom '49 was towed to Rodz in beautiful downtown Burbank, California, where Mike Donatelli and Mike O'Brien advised Debby that the best route would be to install an F-1 front disc brake conversion kit from Classic Performance Products, complete with one of their under-floor 8-inch booster/dual master cylinder combos. Naturally, going in with the knowledge that Chuck invested over 1,000 man-hours modifying the pickup to his personal design, anything could be possible when it came to the mechanical underpinnings Chuck specified for the truck. Sure enough, as the existing brake parts were removed and the CPP disc brake conversion components were held into place to evaluate whether or not they would be a direct fit, they discovered some further modifications would be necessary.
Since we often get inquiries from readers interested in improving trucks that no one manufactures a direct bolt-in kit for, we figured that following along with the crew at Rodz while they adapted the CPP F-1 disc brake setup would provide some insights on what it takes to handle a one-off situation. Utilizing an existing CPP kit as a starting point instead of beginning from scratch saved a tremendous amount of time and guaranteed the essential engineering necessary was already established and out of the way. From here, the key points that required additional attention were to ensure that everything from steering actuation to brake application functioned properly.
 The cotter key was removed...  The cotter key was removed from the spindle, followed by removing the righthand threaded spindle nut, allowing the brake drum, with its integral hub, to be removed from the spindle. |
 Removing the brake drum revealed...  Removing the brake drum revealed the F-1's stock brakes were freshly rebuilt, but were not up to snuff for 21st-century driving conditions. |