mikewic

I have a 1990 4x4 v6 ext cab auto truck. I'm trying to find out of there are rear disc brakes from a different year that bolt on to our trucks, or at least something more heave duty.

any ideas, or thoughts?

Toy-SkiTzo

sky makes a kit

www.sky-manufacturing.com

its under suspention

ewong

A later model disk /drum paring brake setup COULD be swapped, but AFAIK it is kind of a "rare" configuration.

Most people find that off road use tends to cuase the drum brake bell crank to lock up - so that they want to ditch the bell crank....

curtiswyant

Why are you wanting rear discs anyway?

Elvota

I did a pretty thorough write up on my swap:
https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f116/rear-disc-swap-107749/

I am really liking the increased stopping performance.

Just added an electric brake actuator for my parking brake. I'll have to post up info about that sometime soon.

Works very well for short term stops, bot for long term parking. My plan is to add a DS mechanical caliper disc brake in the future.

mikewic

interesting! thanks! I'll check it out. my goal is increased stopping power. this truck is going to be my wife's toy eventually, and since the rear drums and pads are worn and the calipers need rebuilding I figured that buy the time I completed everything it may be within about $100 or so of a disc conversion.
I want to make sure she can stop really well and with disc on the back it will help keep the fron of the truck level in braking as the rear disc can be setup to work just as hard as the fronts for even braking. (that's how I did it on my civic drag street-class car).

tc

The FROR full floater kit is definitely the way to go if you 'wheel the truck much or are otherwise hard on it.

http://frontrangeoffroadfab.com/nfos...4086830ab24ec6

You can use stock front disks/calipers (but then you have to have a transfer case ebrake) or Supra disks/calipers, then you have an ebrake.

Elvota

I will warn you, the disc conversion puts a lot of power to the rear end, at least the way I did it. For me, this is what I was looking for with the addition of 35's, armor, lift and all that other stuff weighing me down. Plus the 2nd Gen 4Runner has a fair amount of weight already on the back end when compared to a pickup.

You'd want to be very careful with discs on a pickup. I'd think with the light weight of the bed you'd easily lock up the rears making your wife's ride unnerving to say the least. It's not going to have a very even weight distribution front to rear like your Civic may have.

Since 70-80% of your stopping power is the front, you may want to consider leaving the back alone unless you have some weight back there or are pushing bigger tires that need the extra stopping force.

My .02 at least.

mikewic

hrmm so if a conversion is costly and expensive, what do you guys recommend? just going with stainless steel lines and rebuilding the brake system?

mt_goat

I think as long as you get a good adjustable proportional valve you'll be able to fine tune the rear disks to not lock-up before the front. FROR has one on their site. http://frontrangeoffroadfab.com/nfos...968d0bba24f8ae

GenXr

Another good source for those proportioning valves is: http://www.spidertrax.com/s.nl/it.A/...=2&category=79


You do have to be a little more careful installing rear discs on a street driven pickup like mentioned above because they are a lot lighter in the rear end. the one thing I have not found a solution on is the rear ABS. From what I've read, none of the kits maintain the ABS capability. IMO the ABS is a good feature to have on a truck that gets a lot of street use but losing the ABS for a trail rig is not a big deal. The benefits of the rear discs on the trail WAY out weigh losing the ABS. I've converted my Samurai to rear disc (using that spidertrax kit.)

mikewic

sounds liek by the time I try to make this all work, it's going to be a lot more hastle and time and $ than I expected. i thought someone would offer a complete conversion kit for liek $450-$500 or something and all I do is unbolt and bolt. (maybe press old bearings out and isntall new ones)

ok so this looks liek it's not going to be economical for me. (it will see the streets about 95% of its life and even have my family in the truck) So what do you guys recommend then?

What is the BEST drum setup out there? What about front rotors? who has performance rotors and pads for my truck?

ewong

BEST setup on a budget is stock.

If you wheel in mud or water - after the run pull the DRUM off and clean it out and lube it up.

Lube the Bell cranks at the beginning of every "season".

The huge plus with drum PARKING brakes is that they are "self energizing" (the pads pull IN to the drum).

MAINTENCE is the key

mikewic

well i may toss in a set of performance rotors.

Itoyota

I wheel with a stock setup. And with the same truck being my DD i wouldn't worry about it not stopping soon enough. I got new Brembo rotors for the front and ceramic pads. Kept the semi metallic shoes in the rear. Now, i have to be careful when i hit the brakes hard. Mines a 90 pickup 4x4 standard cab. Donno bout you, but without ABS, the brakes i have are more then enough to lock up 33s and send me skidding.