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

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Swapping to calipers on my SOA with 35's was a PIA. The one advantage I did not anticipate was that if an axle shaft breaks in the rear, the caliper and its associated mount to the rear axle housing will hold the tire on there long enough to get to a safe resting place to service the problem.
 
coolotisdog said:
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.
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drums suck in mud once they are full of pudding you have to disassemble and clean them.i have been considering disc brakes in rear with a t-case mounted e brake
 
I know this may take a little more fabbing but the FF axle off of an FZJ80 has the best of both worlds. Factory (drum type) E-brake which is compatible with the 60 series brake lever from what I understand, disk brakes, and a full floater. The negatives are that the axle is a little wider than the stock 6X axle so you may need to run spacers in the front, you have to run 16" rims, you need to be able to fab a little to get them installed. I recently saw an FJ60 with a V8 and a 60 series split case (offset to the passenger side) with an FZJ rear axle. The guy said he had been running it and wheeling it for years and it worked well. If I keep my 60 I will go that route since I already have the axle. Nothing worse than those rear brake conversions that don;t work properly, that has been why I never tried to convert to that setup. Just never looked like it would work well and the feedback here on mud kindof confirms my suspicions. Its kind of hard to justify replacing something that is working since my rears work well with 33s.
 
Randy88FJ62 said:
Swapping to calipers on my SOA with 35's was a PIA. The one advantage I did not anticipate was that if an axle shaft breaks in the rear, the caliper and its associated mount to the rear axle housing will hold the tire on there long enough to get to a safe resting place to service the problem.
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That might work, and it might not. If a friend's experience is any indication of a general trend, then not. Hard to make a general forecast on just one event, but he ended up with a lot of scrap metal in about 30 feet and he wasn't going very fast.

I recall a magazine article about 100 years ago where a guy fab'd hose bib's to his backing plates. The idea was that he could hook up a hose and flush out the drums w/o needing to take things apart. I've no idea if this is a good idea or not - it just stuck in the mind of an adolescent boy reading 4x4 mags and has stayed with me.
 
ntsqd said:
I recall a magazine article about 100 years ago where a guy fab'd hose bib's to his backing plates. The idea was that he could hook up a hose and flush out the drums w/o needing to take things apart. I've no idea if this is a good idea or not - it just stuck in the mind of an adolescent boy reading 4x4 mags and has stayed with me.
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I remember an article like that, too... Also (maybe the same one), of an Aussie bloke doing the same thing to flush his rear drums after river crossings -

But not too concerned about it living in The So Cal. :cool:

:meh:
 
baldredhead said:
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,
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Where did you read this?
 
ntsqd said:
That might work, and it might not. If a friend's experience is any indication of a general trend, then not. Hard to make a general forecast on just one event, but he ended up with a lot of scrap metal in about 30 feet and he wasn't going very fast.
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I've seen it work multiple times, but it's a VERY short distance that can be traveled using the RDB pads to retain the axle..
 
Mace said:
Where did you read this?
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I read it to. Still have the link somewhere. Came to find out that trick only worked with 40 series parts on a 40 series rear (FF only at that, IIRC). Sure woulda been great if that trick worked for 60 series axles too.
 
Vs just welding on a bracket? IMHO, bad idea
 
It would be easier to use a knuckle to help build a mounting bracket rather than cutting up a knuckle to be the mounting bracket.

And I'm pretty sure that such a conversion required that a lot of rear brake power be dialed out with a P-valve if it was driven on the highway.
 
ntsqd said:
It would be easier to use a knuckle to help build a mounting bracket rather than cutting up a knuckle to be the mounting bracket.

And I'm pretty sure that such a conversion required that a lot of rear brake power be dialed out with a P-valve if it was driven on the highway.
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Exactly. Having the exact same caliper front and rear is a poor choice.
 
If one was towing a lot and running heavily loaded down long grades
(my cousins live in the mountains, you know)

it would make very good sense.

Otherwise, it's a pot of work to solve a problem that can be mitigated
by simply using brake shoes with a higher coefficient of friction and less fade...

t
 
Line locks, any type of hydraulic 'parking brake', bleed down over time. Good for hopping out to look at something, bad for long term parking. Fails the DOT requirement for a mechanical parking brake so I doubt they would pass any state's inspection. :)
 
I guess the FZJ rear axle would be too easy for you guys? :confused: You would rather mess with cutting a hub apart and welding it to the rear axle to achieve the rear disk brakes and use a line lock instead of integrating a factory axle with disk and E-brakes to your vehicle? I guess welding some spring perches on is pretty hard? Is there something I am missing? I have seen this done before so it is not impossible.
 
Aseif007 said:
I guess the FZJ rear axle would be too easy for you guys? :confused: You would rather mess with cutting a hub apart and welding it to the rear axle to achieve the rear disk brakes and use a line lock instead of integrating a factory axle with disk and E-brakes to your vehicle? I guess welding some spring perches on is pretty hard? Is there something I am missing? I have seen this done before so it is not impossible.
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The width is an issue.
 
Mace said:
Where did you read this?
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Spook50 said:
I read it to. Still have the link somewhere. Came to find out that trick only worked with 40 series parts on a 40 series rear (FF only at that, IIRC). Sure woulda been great if that trick worked for 60 series axles too.
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Spook50 said:
Looked like a pretty solid way to go to me:

Rear Full Floater Disk Brake Conversion
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yeah that's the one, though my memory completely failed on the pre '79 requirement. sorry for the wild goose chase

what's the difference between the pre 79 40/45 FF axle and the 60 series ones?

Mace said:
Exactly. Having the exact same caliper front and rear is a poor choice.
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4runner calipers on front, fj62 on rear would help. more speculation: datsun 240/260z people upgrade to the 4runner calipers on the front too, perhaps a front datsun caliper could be used on the rear if it's smaller still than the fj62 unit.... and yes i realize this is all now moot for this section of the board but it's fun to consider
 
Mace said:
Exactly. Having the exact same caliper front and rear is a poor choice.
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That's why you do the 4Runner front caliper and 80 series master cylinder upgrade first :D
 
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