If disk brakes are so much better at stopping a vehicle, then why wouldn't huge18 wheelers have them? And, just another thought, if you are able to lock up your brakes, with drum brakes, are rotors/calipers going to lock them up better? Seriously, the only reason I could see for making a switch from drums to rotors would be for looks or ease of brake replacement. $799 to "upgrade" no way!

 

Nothing is wrong with 4 wheel disc. I just don't think converting our trucks to it is worth doing.

I don't like 4 wheel drum at all. I think having front disc is the most important.

 

Thats interesting that they offer it without a parking brake since you have to have it to pass inspection. It would be cool to have rear wheel disc, but I would much rather spend that 600-800 bucks somewhere else.

I just think that its not going to be a substantial improvement.

Also, I wouldn't bother swapping to a 9 inch. There is no provision for the VSS.

 

Even if the rears do 40 percent of the braking sometimes, the front still do 60 or so percent which is most of it.

The drums are just as effective as the disc are.

 

Disc brakes are easier to modulate with the pedal, are more heat-tolerant and fade resistant than drums. The auto-engage property of drum brakes makes it hard to accurately modulate braking force. Obviously the front brakes do most of the work stopping a vehicle due to the weight transfer under braking, but that doesn't mean that the braking force the rear brakes provide is insignificant. Add a load and/or a trailer and the brake balance shifts rearward. The rear discs might not provide more raw braking power, but they should provide a better feel. As for being worth the cost to swap, that's really up to the individual owner to decide.

 

OK gentlemen, before I start a feeding frenzy, and understanding that we're discussing older braking systems, I want to say this about brakes.

My '04 Expy and '99 Taurus both have 4 wheel disc brakes. I've performed two 4 wheel brake jobs on the Taurus and one 4 wheel brake job on the Expy and the brakes wore very evenly at all four corners and needed replacing at the same time / mileage intervals. That would allude that all four corners are working about the same to stop the vehicle.

On my '88, I've typically done two front brakes jobs to one rear brake job.

Drum brakes can very easily come out of adjustment as the automatic adjusters don't always function as perfectly as they did when new. If you drive the truck every day you may not notice right away as brakes wear so slowly that when you do notice, your definately relying on your fronts more.

This is my third F-150 and I've had my drums professionally re-done but I typically do them myself. The end result has always been the same. At some point I have to climb inder the truck, lift a rear wheel and make a manual adjustment to increase brake performance and improve pedal feel.

Tim

 

Hey there,

Did you end up doing the rear disk brake conversion?


Cheers

 

IrishChef's last activity on here was back in March 2012. I don't think you will get an answer out of him anytime soon...


Disc brakes are far superior to drums. The comments by a few in this old thread are comical. I did a disc brake conversion on the D70 I put under my '78 F150. Holy crap did they make a HUGE difference!

 

Exactly, I find it so ridiculous thay people say that it's not worth it and drum brakes do only 30% of the braking. Congrats. Did you buy the conversion kit or went the route of explorer or some other car from junk yard? Mine is a 86 with a 9" rear end.

 

You can do this a lot cheaper than $799 or even $599, even with new parts. For the Sterling in my F350, I figured around $300 with all new parts.

Here is a link to a $328 kit for the Sterlings: http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/R2055.html

That said, I haven't done it. You'll want to add a proportioning valve, and dial the rear influence down if you do. Otherwise the back will have a tendency to overstep the front. At least, that was the case on a Chevy swap I helped with. I imagine it would be the same on these trucks. And you would need a parking brake solution, I intended to go with a pinion brake.

 

Perfect, even better. I may do it soon. Now once this conversion is done, you think I will find a 5.5 lug pattern rotor in any parts store or I have to go through sterling every time?

Cheers.

 

I just saw that you said you had the 9" rear end -- that kit won't work for you. Sterling is the manufacturer of the 10.25" and 10.5" axles that are under the 1 and some 3/4 ton trucks.

That said, that kit uses GM calipers you can buy anywhere, and rotors from an E350 (I think, I may be confusing kits). Either way, the only custom part is the bracket that allows you to bolt on the caliper. You can buy the bracket alone from them, and source the other parts yourself. I found them slightly cheaper through RockAuto. You'd still need to come up with a parking brake solution.

For the 9" under your truck, I think you can use some generation of El Dorado calipers and still retain your parking brake, but I don't know much about the details. So I may be completely wrong. I read about it on this forum, so you may be able to dig it up via search.

 

I put disk brakes on the 9" in my '71 Bronco using a kit from Jeff's Bronco Graveyard or Wild Horses (I forget which, I've used both quite a bit). It uses Chevy calipers. I used front calipers (cheaper but no parking brake) but I could have used Eldorado rear calipers to get a parking brake. Would've fit on the same brackets.

 

What calipers does that RuffStuff kit use?

Do you have an emergency brake?

 

Their kit uses 73-87 Chevy 3/4 Ton 4x4 front calipers, with a 96 Ford E350 Van Rear rotor (NAPA#4886799).