In With the New:

The first thing I did was mask off the rotors and paint the hats to help provide a bit of rust protection. The kit doesn't come with the drum brake hubs that are needed to complete the installation, I was able to find a set on ebay that already had the outer diameter turned down to fit the hats of the C5 rotors. This is all covered in the material provided by Touring Classics. It's always best to start with new bearings, races and seals. My hubs still had old races in them. A big hammer, a long punch and some tapping and they eventually came out. Getting the new ones in went easy as Carl Casanova (there are links to his site as well as others at the end of this) loaned me a special tool he has that allowed me to tap the bearings right in. If you plan this all out you might be able to get the new races pressed in when you are having your hubs turned down. Be sure to pack the wheel bearings properly and if you had drum brakes before here's a reminder to get grease made for disk brakes. Oh, don't forget to install the seals in the back of the hubs after you place the inner bearing in against the race. From there I followed the instructions included in the kit with one exception, I test fit everything before applying the Loctite and torquing things down to the provided spec's. Be sure to use the recommended Loctite, they make the stuff for all kinds of different applications and fastener sizes. The wrong one and you either can never loosen the fastener again or it doesn't hold properly and you run the risk of something working it's way loose.

After test fitting everything on the driver side I really started feeling comfortable with the kit I bought. I still opted to test fit the passenger side before final assembly. Think about it, I was bolting C5 parts to a 1969 disk brake spindle and drum brake hub. My trust was in the kit not the reused old parts and car itself. The spacer and caliper bracket provided a perfect fit on both sides. If you use drum brake spindles with the upper caliper boss machined down you have even more reason to test fit everything. The Caliper has to fit the rotor just right or you'll end up with problems down the road.

Once I knew everything fit properly I took it all apart and got everything ready for the final installation. I used Loctite where instructed and followed the recommended torque spec's. The final assembly went very fast and there were no problems getting everything to fit. Here's a shot with everything but the dust cap in place.

With everything down to the wheels torqued properly I decided it was time to do some experimenting. Before I pull the brake booster and convert my system to a manual one from power I decided to go ahead and bleed the brakes and see for myself just what works and what doesn't. I have no doubts that by the time I swap out the rear drums the Touring Classic product will be top notch. Keep reading to find out what I have learned...

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