Everyone is talking brakes

[panhandler62]

or maybe it just seems that way since that is where I am at right now.

I am getting the third member ready to put back in. I'll be yanking the drums and everything that goes with them later today. It's going back together with dics.

That said ...

I found the rotors, found an adapter and I have calipers just laying around. Once I get the hubs off the drums I'll have most of what I need but it occured to me that the Chevy calipers I have (off the front of a 77) won't give me something a manual truck needs pretty badly; a parking brake.

I see three solutions to this:

1) Get 79ish Caddy rear calipers with the cable operated parking brakes
2) Go completely aftermarket
3) Get a shaft brake

I really don't want to spend the money implied by #2 (and don't know if anyone makes a system for my HO52/72 hubs anyway.)

I'm vasilating between #1 and #3 though, mostly because there is a certain "cool factor" to using a shaft brake.

What are your thoughts?