Question about 76 dana 44 that had drum brakes swapped onto it

[Itsa67]

I picked up a dana 44 to replace the 30 in my 1967 Bronco. After looking it over I discovered by the tag and then the bill of materials that it is a 1976 model--but it has drum brakes on it (sway bar mount was also cut off). Anyways, I want to add disc brakes to it but need to make sure that the housing is compatible with any of the common brake swaps. Is there anything I need to look out for with this front end? I am guessing they just swapped from the knuckle out to the drum brakes and moved the disc setup to another vehicle--I can't imagine another reason to swap out to drum brakes from the factory discs.

 

[Btempy]

Weird. My 76 also had drums with t steering setup. I never did look up the BOM to see if it was swapped out completely or just outers. Anyways, Im cheap so I always use 76-79 full size disks as they are abundant and swap the complete knuckle out, you'll just have to pick up sleeves if you want to use your original tie rod as the taper is different.

 

[Itsa67]

Cool, thanks. Sounds like it is just like any other bronco 44 between the knuckles. So I can use the normal Ford or Chevy swap in that case--whichever I find parts for first.

 

[Madgyver]

i guess is smog. 76 year has smog regulations in some states, so early year bronco owners would take items from later broncos to tradeoff. My quess.