That's where the Merc is at, all new and factory. The car is 80% stock but weighs a little more than it did from the factory, which isn't helping anything, and those brakes are ok at best. I know he's looked at a couple disc setups over the years, but hasn't committed to it yet.
Here's a blurry pic of it at our friend's shop back in April. He has since lost a hubcap.
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I have a '64 Chevy that I’ve been researching front disc on, and that $1,000 ballpark is where I keep landing, too. My Chevy is a manual brake car like your Ford, and I keep reading that disc setups need a booster, but I don't know anyone with a manual/disc setup, so I’ve never driven one. How is it? Guys online act like you can't safely drive a manual/disc setup.
First of all, really nice Merc..
I would recommend to anyone that can afford to, to upgrade to front disc brakes at minimum if they do very much highway speed driving. On the Mercury, same as my 51 Ford the master cylinder is mounted under the floor. That gives a longer arm (more leverage) from the brake pedal to the master cylinder. So it applies more force with less pressure, same principal as power boosted. So there for the power brakes are not really needed as much.
Now on your 64 Chevy with the master cylinder located on the firewall the pedal arm has less leverage and therefore would gain more by using a booster. You still can safely run front disc rear drum brakes with a manual master cylinder but would take more pedal pressure than what you have now. I personally know several people using the manual master cylinder on their cars without any negative effects other than more input force on the pedal.
Either way you go you should absolutely run a dual system master cylinder with a proportioning valve just like on all modern cars.
