Lowering A 1973-1987 Chevrolet Truck - A Drop In The Bucket

Here’s the assembled rotor and hat assembly ready to be bolted up to the hub.

A billet aluminum adapter mates the Billet Superlite six-piston caliper to the Fat Man spindle. Note the spacers between the two.

The hat and rotor assembly are retained to the hub by three ¼-20 fasteners. This prevents the rotor assembly from moving when swapping out wheels, etc. and simplifies the installation of the caliper.

With the rotor assembly installed on the hub, the caliper can then be slid onto the mounting studs and tightened up. Once again, note the use of the provided spacers.

One neat feature Wilwood incorporated into the caliper’s design is the ability to change pads without removing the caliper. New pads simply drop in after removing the retaining bar.

Compared to the stock single-piston disc brakes and coil spring package, the new front end will not only give us some much needed additional ground clearance, but some serious performance improvements as well.

A bird’s-eye view of the front end shows how much the new Fat Man crossmember cleaned up the chassis and raised the scrub line of the frame along with narrowing the front track width so those big 18-inch wheels will tuck up nicely under the fenders.

That’s a bit more like it! We’ll tackle the rear suspension next and get rid of those dinky Daisies as well!