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Liqudus
Dodge Dakota
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3/17/2002
16:20:09
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 Subject: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Has anyone done it? and recomendations on what brakes to get or which ones fit best. I have been having a lot of problems with my current brakes and want to beef them up. I do have a welder so any suggestions will be a great help. thanks!
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dusterkid74
Dodge Dakota
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3/17/2002
18:20:30
|  RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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I belive pst makes a kit to do it!
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roadracer
Dodge Dakota
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3/17/2002
18:46:16
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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stainless steel brakes makes a kit for rear swaps. I just received mine like two days ago. It is a really nice kit, everything you need is there. NO welding required! will be installing it next weekend. By the way you can order them from truckperformance.com $739.00.
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Liqudus
Dodge Dakota
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3/17/2002
23:06:34
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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thanks! I'll check em out tonight! is that just for the rear set? I'd assume that the front ones are seprate.
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Tim
Dodge Dakota
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3/18/2002
19:24:18
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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I swapped to rear disc about 25,000 miles ago and this was a great upgrade. The SS system was not available when I did mine on my 98 cc about 3 years ago. I fabricated mine using calipers from a 86 eldorado and rotors from the front. If I were to do it again I would use the conversion from SSB as these calipers are are better than the ones I used. I had my truck in for a new warranty battery at about 25,000 and the mechanics loved the 4 wheel discs. They work great, made a big difference and have had no trouble with them. I recently changed all four wheel pads and all four corners are wearing perfect. You won't be disapointed!
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Marc 99 R/T
Dodge Dakota
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3/19/2002
08:53:06
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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I have done ss conversion it stops about the same. It was very expensive and the kit did not bolt right up like you would think. Parking break cable was not long enough, spacers provided for passenger side were the wrong size.
So, I recommend not trying this at home or you truck might be out of commission for a while.
If you decide to make this a weekend project remember, if you have a problem with the kit you will be unable to resolve anything until Monday and if something needs to be shipped it will take at minium 2 days!
I had a dealership do the conversion for me.
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Liqudus
Dodge Dakota
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3/19/2002
12:11:31
|  RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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about how much did it cost?
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Wcomea
Dodge Dakota
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3/19/2002
12:56:15
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Did you notice any difference in stopping power?
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Marc 99 R/T
Dodge Dakota
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3/20/2002
15:40:42
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Kit will cost around $700
install at minium $250
Not a major difference in stopping for almost a grand.
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sandman
Dodge Dakota
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3/20/2002
18:52:57
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Unless you do things that that repeatedly heat the breaks up and brake fade is a problem I would leave the rear drums in place. Rear breaks on empty trucks lock up realy easily. Rotors lock up even easier. The only advantage that rotors have over drums is that they can be less prone to brake fade. It would be far better to upgrade the front rotors and calipers. If you can find a good 4,6, or 8 piston Brembo caliper set up with nice cross drilled rotors that are larger for the front it would make a huge difference in breaking. 70% to 90%(depends on design) of all breaking is done by the front brakes. Hope this helps
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Dr0p0ff
GenIII
3/21/2002
08:47:45
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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good info sandman. i'm gonna second his advice, i've been told that a few times.
Sgt G
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Tim
Dodge Dakota
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3/21/2002
18:53:37
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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If you don't think disc brakes are superior to drums maybe you just don't understand how they operate. Rear brakes do more like 30 to 40% of the total braking and do more when you lower your truck in the rear more than the front. If you use your veh to tow this also increases the load on the rears. You don't see drums on nascar for a reason. All things equal discs are better than drums, vented discs are better than non vented and a larger diameter are better than small. A brake is only as good as it can disipate heat and the pure design of discs are better than drums. If you can't tell the difference riding around town between disc and drum your right, but a four cylinder gets you around town as good as a v8! I'm not trying to piss anyone off here but the swap to disc brakes is a good upgrade. You will see the difference when its realy needed.
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sandman
Dodge Dakota
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3/21/2002
22:14:08
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Tim, there is a reason that Tractor trailers wich tow more weight then you can imagine use mainly drums not discs! If you are driveing 120-180 miles an hour and then slowing down to turn left every 15 seconds for 500 miles or driveing in any other sanctioned raceing event then I would agree with you. They would definately help more when loaded but they would hurt you when empty. Disc breaks on the rear of trucks is mostly marketing hype. While a well designed disc brake setup can be less prone to fade it is seldom a problem on light duty trucks. Some disc breaks are not to great. Most conversions use old GM single piston slideing calipers and rotors that were not very good when they were first used. If you have ABS most of these kits do not include the ABS system or do not work well with it. You usualy have to play with brake bias/propotioning. These kits do work well on cars that came with rear drums. One of the trucks in this years Car and Driver Truck of the year award used front Disc's and rear drums. It had the shortest stoping distance and was less effected by cargo and towing (5 foot difference between loaded and unloaded)then the truck with 4 wheel disc breaks! If you are still haveing a problem with break fade while towing I know where you can get alot of good info for free. You can go to your local DMV tell them that you are thinking about getting your CDL. They will hand you a free book. Most states CDL books have alot of good information in them that everyone should know and probably was not taught in driver ed class. They have one section on different breaking techniques includeing stragies for long desecents. It is good reading. I hardly doubt that anyone would see that much difference driveing around town or general towing not enough to justify $795.00 for a kit. I am glad that it improved your breaking performance!!P.S. I have been a ASE Master Tech. since 1989. I fully understand how a modern hydralic and phneumatic(sp) brakeing sytem works!
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scat pack
GenIII
3/22/2002
15:11:41
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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If problem is due to towing a better solution could be trailer brakes. Drum brakes are generally all you should need for the rear of a pickup, I think there are two stock sizes, maybe you could upgrade to the larger size and save lots of $$ and hassle.
2K RC 4.7 4x4
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Tim
Dodge Dakota
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3/22/2002
18:24:08
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Sandman, for you to say that upgrading to four wheel disc brakes (not breaks) is not worthwhile, I just can't understand your thinking. The cost is not the cheapest upgrade, but far more money is wasted on garbage that is supposed to increase horsepower. I could go on more but it is a simple fact that discs are better than drums. Maybe you never drove a four wheel drum car and experienced true brake fade. If anyone out there is reading this four wheel discs are money well spent! If someone comes out with a upgrade to larger front rotors and two or four piston calipers I will buy them too.
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Duke
Dodge Dakota
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3/22/2002
23:18:52
|  RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Sandman,
Tractor trailer rigs use air brakes and not hydraulics. Thereby the use of drum brakes. This is due to the trailer connections. You will notice that all trailer brakes in the passenger market are either electric or hydraulic (tongue activated). So far there isn't a system that makes quick connects for hydraulic braking systems.
Secondly, why do ALL sport cars come with 4 wheel discs? Because of superior braking power.
Remember, auto manufacturers are out to make a buck off the buyer of their product. This leads to engines that are not performing to their full potential. This also gives us soft suspensions. This also gives us rear brake drums instead of discs. It's all about the almighty dollar!
Just to note, I owned a 90' Izuzu pickup with 4 wheel discs and it out braked My 96' Dakota.
With my Dakota I was towing 4-5000 pounds. This was with a hydraulic tongue brake on the trailer. Still, it caused my front rotors to warp from extreme heat.
I feel that if I had 4 wheel discs, this would'nt have happened.
So in essence if you drive like a grandma then rear drum brakes are good enough for you.
But if you want performance than do the upgrade.
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sandman
Dodge Dakota
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3/22/2002
23:37:30
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Tim if you read my origanal post I did mention that upgradeing the front rotors and calipers would do more to improve over all brakeing performance.While I belive that rear disc brakes might be supior on the rear of a light duty truck under a very narrow performance prameter it would not make that big of an impact on overall brakeing performance. Yes I have driven four wheel drum cars and truck but I have never owned one. You know the Silverado(sp) has four wheel disc brakes and it does not have the best stopping nubers out of all full size trucks! I love four wheel disc breaks on cars. They can even be designed to funtion on the rear of trucks. This does not mean that some after market kit is going to address the issues that I brought up in previous posts. While disc brakes are less prone to fadeing they lock up alot easier. Trucks already have locking issues with the rear drums. There is that whole ABS problem. Then there is master cylinder volume and pressure concerns. Then you have to re-bias the brake system. It makes more sense to upgrade the brakes that do 70% of the work not the ones that doe 30% of the work. I liken adding aftermarket disc brakes conversion to shaveing the door handles off a 4x4 truck. It look's real cool but does little to clean up the aero-dynamics of the truck. One good thing about these conversions is that you can change your pad alot quicker then messing with shoes. What drives me crazy is most of these so called kits that require you to custom fab. more then a few parts is that they almost always use cheap GM single piston caliper. More trucks have disc and drum setup then four wheel disc. In a few Years you will probably see Tractor Trailer's going to a totaly new disck brake design. This new system enguages a friction pad that is round and contacts 100% of the rotors friction area. This would be a huge step forward for brake systems on all trucks. Has anyone that has did one of these conversions on a 4x4 Dodge truck loaded up the truck with a fith wheel or sand bags etc... and tested the factory breaks then did the conversion and re tested. I like hard numbers. One thing that most of us can agree on is that we need a well designed upgrade for or Gen III Dak brakes! Did anyone find out if Brembo makes a kit for the front rotors and calipers or if the vipers front calipers could be adapted to our trucks???????This post is just my opion.
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Tim
Dodge Dakota
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3/24/2002
07:52:14
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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The system on my truck does use gm calipers and I have no problem with them. they can activate the abs on hard braking so a larger caliper would only lock it up easier. This tells me I am getting all the braking power I can from the rear, where the difference is when you are pushing your brakes hard for what ever reason discs will recover faster and disipate more heat. As far as upgrading to 4 piston caliper on the front would be useless if you don't use a larger disc. Its already been proven people are overheating them and warping them. So adding more braking power to the rear only helps this problem. I also plan on adding powerslot rotors to the front to help cool these rotors. A caliper puts the heat in the rotor, if the rotor is already overheating a larger caliper on the same rotor will only overheat it faster. I plan on doing some testing with a electronic thermometer because my truck uses the the same exact rotor front and rear I can compare them to each other. Then when I install the power slotted rotors I can tell if they do run cooler. Under normal braking the temps of the rotors were front 185 deg and the back 128 deg. I plan on pushing the brakes under different conditions and seeing where these numbers go. If anyone is interested I will post them.
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HillBilly
Dodge Dakota
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12/25/2013
01:38:57
| RE: Swapping rear drums for Disc brakes.
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Great information I think the reason to convert or not convert is how you use your Dakota. My 2006 SLT 4.7 crew cab was totaled by a lady running a red light and hitting me head on @ 50 mph the airbag did not deploy thank god I had my seat belt on. I have a fractured clavicle injured Left hip and beat to hell. If I had not been in a real truck with a frame I most likely would be dead.I understand the new Dakota's are going to be on a mini van chassis no V8 as an option a striped down "toy" truck. I found a 2011 Laramie in Oklahoma with all the options I want 4.7 V8 towing pkg, anti slip dif, pretty much every option you can order.I pull a 5'X10' trailer 50-60% of the time. I have a AirAid cold air filter on order, headers will be installed, a cam, a performance chip and Hydrogen generator. I am open to suggestions for performance up-grades as long as they aren't to radical I am differently going to change the rear drums to disc brakes. My question is could I move the factory front disc to the back and install larger slotted high performance disc on the front? Or would I be better off leave the front alone and purchase the kit for the back? Thanks
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best pron
Dodge Dakota
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12/20/2018
15:38:01
| qLnJuifDPFS
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ok7ngW Thanks again for the blog article.Really thank you!
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