Rear drums...are they really all that cool?

[thatoneguy]

So I am making some headway with my cruiser and am looking at the breaks. New lines...sure. The fronts are no biggie, simple disc goodness. But then I started looking at the rear. Drums, dependent on the E-brake, etc, etc. I have Cruised (pun ahoy!) the forums and seen a bit about "upgrading" to rear disc and found this kit while surfing google:

https://www.4wdfactory.com/store/pr...ck-axle-1979%2d1985-Disc-Brake-Conversion-kit

My question: would this be a good idea? I am not doing any heavy 4 wheeling, just daily driver stuff and if I could make the whole brake maintenance thing easier...well, that's just cake.

What do you all think?

 

[zebrabeefj40]

In my opinion the stock stuff works just fine if all you're doing is DD on tires up to 33" or so. Go through the drums to make sure they work correctly and after that there is little maintenance required.

Nick

 

[thatoneguy]

I was kinda leaning that way...but I am also amazingly lazy sometimes. I guess I could put some of my energy twords fighting some of the rust then. heh.

 

[ntsqd]

If you search enough you will find that most who use those "Caddy calipers" complain about the parking brake not functioning very well. Sometimes newly rebuilt calipers will work well. For a while. then they don't. The problem with that caliper's design is that when the parking brake adjuster stops adjusting it also affects the service brakes. Slowly the rear brakes become less and less effective. A friend of mine made it a project to thoroughly understand how these calipers work and how to keep them working. If you look in the tech section at classicbroncos.com you'll find his article on this there. After all of that effort and work in two years his rear brakes weren't working well either. He moved to the available to 9 inch Ford axles Explorer Rear disc conversion and hasn't looked back. The "Exploder" RDB's work better as both a service brake and as a parking brake. I've no idea if they could be adapted to an LC rear axle. I would guess that it would take significant machining and welding for it to happen.

If I get a vote it's No on those calipers.

 

[thatoneguy]

Everybody gets a vote on this. It's just one of those things that popped into my head at 5am and I have been working through the idea for a while and thought I would get the general feeling on it. The more I read and research, the more that I am just going to deal with the drums and be done with it.

 

[ntsqd]

Rear disc brakes are a good thing. It is implementing them on a vehicle that didn't start out that way that is troublesome. If there were an Exploder kit that would work it would be one of my two suggestions. The other would be to research the FROFF kit for parts availability and user input. I don't know that they offer an LC version of the kit.

 

[Spook50]

I wasn't happy with the eldo calipers (integrated ebrake). Another problem with those that hasn't been mentioned yet is that they're designed for a pedal-type parking brake which will put a LOT more force on it than a hand type brake that our Cruisers have. I had tried two different cable setups to try to get them to work, and the second one I tried (a kit from Lokar) seemed to be working good at first, but after deploying for four months one winter and having the truck kept in a friend's garage, I came back to find out the cables had siezed inside the housings but good. Thank God I forgot to set the brake when I parked it.

Now I'm using Monte Carlo calipers (no ebrake provision) and they don't lose their braking performance over time, but now I don't have an embrake, plus the calipers take a ton of fluid to actuate, so even with my larger 4Runner calipers in the front, my proportioning between front and rear brakes just can't get dialed in right (I have a Wilwood proportioning valve on my rear line and have removed the factory LSPV and its plumbing). I'm also using a larger 1" bore minitruck master cylinder.

I'm now planning on mounting 60 series front calipers to my rear axle, which will require welding caliper brackets into place and installing 60 series front rotors onto the axle flanges. These will take less fluid to actuate than the GM calipers, which will hopefully help the front-to-rear proportioning, and I'll be installing a tcase disc parking brake kit from TSM so I have fully functional brakes again. With any luck, that combination will be the golden ticket.

 

[lehiguy]

There is nothing that would make me go back to drums. Four-wheel disks that will lock up 35" tires is awesome. The original drums never worked very well for me, I hated them.

 

[Spike Strip]

FWIW ... perfectly adjusted and functioning rear drums, and 4runner calipers and MC, OE quality components, the braking system on my 6k lb rig, loaded, works great...

 

[MANUCHAO]

I know this would require a lot of fab and welding too but has any body tried installing the rear disk brakes / drums out of an fj80?
They have the best of both worlds. disk brakes and a drum e-brake...

I have rear drums right now and would rather have disk but drums would do for now....

 

[Spook50]

I know this would require a lot of fab and welding too but has any body tried installing the rear disk brakes / drums out of an fj80?
They have the best of both worlds. disk brakes and a drum e-brake...

I have rear drums right now and would rather have disk but drums would do for now....

If the axle shaft flanges were the same between 60 and 80 Cruisers and the housing ends the same, it'd be possible. I really am curious to see what exactly is different between the two that would prevent this.

Though I would expect if it were easy enough for a shadetree mechanic like most of us to do, it'd be alot more common. As it is, I've never seen it done unless a complete 80 series axle was being swapped in.

 

[Elbert]

don't some of the full floater axle assemblies for the 60 have disk brakes? What do they use for emergencey brake?

Is there a 100% rear disk brake solution to include emergencey brake for FJ60 with semifloat rear axle?

 

[Spook50]

don't some of the full floater axle assemblies for the 60 have disk brakes? What do they use for emergencey brake?

Is there a 100% rear disk brake solution to include emergencey brake for FJ60 with semifloat rear axle?

No 60/62 of any spec came with rear discs, whether FF or SF axles. IIRC, identical individual drum brake parts were used between SF and FF axles too.

Someone a while ago had mentioned Isuzu Trooper RDB parts possibly being useable for 60 series axles, but I never saw anything come of it.

 

[ntsqd]

To the best of my knowledge the Troopers with RDB's have a Dana 44 rear axle. The RDB system may be a clone or very similar to the RDB system used under some of the Volvo cars equipped with the Dana 30 rear axle. That info is very subject to further research though, so don't take it as gospel.

With a SF rear axle the floating caliper design appears to be used exclusively. I don't know why, but I suspect that with the axle flange's ability to float in and out that a caliper that can 'follow' it without increasing the pad to rotor gap is a good idea. With the FF & Mini-Truck's axle designs that wouldn't be a constraint.

I've read that the FJ80 parts don't bolt up, but I want a set of them to look at for myself.

 

[Slowerthanu]

My rear drums function fine. The trick is maintaining them (you know, brake cleaner, brake grease on the adjusters). It is the front calipers and the master cylinder that benefit from an upgrade (I used the 4Runner calipers with a T100 M/C on my FJ40, the results were excellent on 35 inch tires).

 

[coolotisdog]

My rear drums function fine. The trick is maintaining them (you know, brake cleaner, brake grease on the adjusters). It is the front calipers and the master cylinder that benefit from an upgrade (I used the 4Runner calipers with a T100 M/C on my FJ40, the results were excellent on 35 inch tires).

Totally agree. There is nothing wrong with rear drum brakes if you have them set up right and they are adjusting properly. As long as the adjusters are clean and greased they work great.

 

[IH8Wood]

Drum brakes are stupidly complicated compared to disc but, as others have said, if maintained and adjusted , they work just fine.

 

[Elbert]

No 60/62 of any spec came with rear discs, whether FF or SF axles. IIRC, identical individual drum brake parts were used between SF and FF axles too.

Someone a while ago had mentioned Isuzu Trooper RDB parts possibly being useable for 60 series axles, but I never saw anything come of it.

Non-USA market full float axles?

I thought I recall one of the shops in CA ...offereing full float assemblies with disk brakes (OEM stuff)? these were from parted out trucks.

 

[Spook50]

Non-USA market full float axles?

I thought I recall one of the shops in CA ...offereing full float assemblies with disk brakes (OEM stuff)? these were from parted out trucks.

They may have found a method that used Toyota parts (in which case I wanna see what they used), but no 60/62 rear axles came from the factory with discs.

 

[baldredhead]

I'm now planning on mounting 60 series front calipers to my rear axle, which will require welding caliper brackets into place and installing 60 series front rotors onto the axle flanges. These will take less fluid to actuate than the GM calipers, which will hopefully help the front-to-rear proportioning, and I'll be installing a tcase disc parking brake kit from TSM so I have fully functional brakes again. With any luck, that combination will be the golden ticket.

thread resurrection whilst searching for something else....

the SF and FF axles do indeed use the same drum brake hardware. i'm running a factory FF under my 62 and recycled the brakes off my SF axle. i have read that a front knuckle can be sliced up and mounted to the rear axle to allow mounting of a caliper in a factory manner, and there is a chevy disk that needs the center bore punched out to fit the toyota axle...

since the FF and SF axles share drum brake parts this should work on either axle. i haven't done it though, my drums are working fine at the moment