Self-adjusting should always "work". If it doesn't, either there is nothing wrong at all (they don't need adjusting) or the brake system has failed partly or completely, or the brake shoes are worn past replacement.

All adjusting does is move the shoe very slightly closer to the drum; and only if it's very slightly too far away, due to shoe wear, when the brakes are not applied. This should not be happening often; especially if the brakes are wearing at a normal rate.

To engage adjustment, back up while pumping the brakes a few times. You don't need to brake hard; enough to slow the vehicle as compared to a coast.

When you apply the brakes, the shoe will contact the drum and because it's going in reverse instead of forward, will try to rotate around the axle. Since they can't, this provides a force to tighten the adjuster.

Once the shoe has moved enough (should be a very small amount) there is no point in trying to adjust it any more. It's good to go for the next few thousand miles. Plus, it won't adjust further anyway; doesn't need it.

*If* they were way out of adjustment ... like you haven't had the thing in reverse for a year ... you *might* notice the brake engage a bit earlier in the pedal, after the free play but just at the point where the slightest stopping power is applied to the wheels.

That should be all there is to notice. It's not going to improve your panic stops, since in a panic stop the shoe would be against the drum as hard as the system will allow; rear braking pressure is limited by a proportioning valve; otherwise the rears lock long before the fronts and you spin.

That's also why rear disks won't help either; the higher pressure available with a disk can't be used. In order to get the rears to grab harder ... and the drums are probably capable of grabbing harder without going to disks ... the fronts have to improve first.

Rear disks are on trucks now because consumers asked for them, and they formed part of their buying decisions. No other reason. Because of anit-lock braking systems, it's possible to use disks in the rear without compromising safety, so manufacturers obliged, but they are not needed nor necessarily desired.

They don't improve braking versus drums on the rear axle on vehicles that have to carry heavy payloads, and especially with vehicles where consumers like to put heavier than stock rims, larger than stock tires, and tires with off-highway traction.

 

Where you would see improvement running rear discs would be while braking at highway speeds, and towing. Thanks for the self adjuster explanation Johnny2Bad!

 

If everything is as it should be, yeah, the self adjusters work fine. Trouble is, things are seldom 'as they should be'. On 95% of the rear brake jobs I do, the adjusters are seized. (as in, they don't work) They aren't considered a 'real' maintenance item, and are probably one of the most neglected aspects of maintenance I have seen. They hang out in a rather unfriendly environment, and the only time folks see 'em, as when the back brakes are making really rude noises...... I can't count the number of customers that have commented about how much better their brake pedal feels after JUST freeing up the adjusters, and manually adjusting the rears.

 

If you're working on a lot of vehicles, you see a large proportion with severely neglected brakes. Some owners only pay attention to them once they make horrible noises or have failed one way or another.

Call me crazy, but I think that people who have to be dragged screaming and kicking into the brake store aren't likely to be amongst the majority of the people who are registered here.

If you take a moment to get on the ground from the rear and just look to see there is no indications of leaks and the inspection plug is still there every few months, and then check the rears for shoe wear, leaky cylinders, and broken parts when you do replace your front pads, the adjusters will be working fine for as long as you own the truck.

But, I appreciate where you're coming from; the average driver is pretty negligent when it comes to brake maintenance. I don't know about how the average shop approaches parts like the adjusters, but I do all my own brakes (since a brake shop's negligence nearly killed me 20 years ago ... almost got broadsided by a semi a week out of the shop when an incorrectly installed front brake hose burst) and they haven't been a problem so far.

There's nothing "wrong" with rear disks on a truck. I just feel that if you're asking, I say spend the money on the fronts and carry on. Rear conversions are not cheap and I don't see any value for your hard earned dollar there. I'd especially hate to see someone compromise on the front upgrade to make room in the budget for the rear disk conversion.

 

I don't think the folks here are a fair representation of the 'average' driver though. The mere fact that they are here at all is an indication that they are more aware of their vehicle, and it's needs, than most everyone else. Most of the folks I had to deal with, didn't have a clue what I was talking about anyway. They just get the usual glazed eye look until you get to the price.......

I agree with your last paragraph completely. The fronts do 70% of the braking under normal circumstances. Probably even more in a truck, unloaded.

Did the 99's have the dual piston front calipers?

 

OK, so no rear disks, makes sense. The truck probably is light enough it wouldn't help anyway. What are your thoughts on slotted/cross drilled front rotors?

 

I don't think mine are dual piston, if I remember right just one. Could be wrong though.

 

If you have single piston front calipers, pick up a pair of the Light Duty 3/4 ton calipers for a 94-96 Ram. They have larger pistons, so, more breaking affect for the same pedal effort. They should be a direct bolt on.

 

From what I understand (I've only had my truck 3 months ... first Ram 1/2 ton) there is a good upgrade path on these trucks with stock (Mopar, NAPA, etc) parts.

** sorry, HeyYou, missed your post there **

Order the 3/4 ton Ram callipers and either the Dodge or GM 1-ton rear slave cylinders. Direct bolt-in. I believe (but don't know for sure) that these are 2-piston callipers. Shouldn't be hard to dig and find out for sure.

The GM slaves are slightly bigger diameter piston ( 3 mm or about 1/8") but either are much larger than the 1/2 ton piece.

There are two part #'s for the 3/4 ton callipers because there were two GVW options. Both are direct bolt-ins so it doesn't matter which you get. The difference is slightly larger piston; also matters when you order pads which one you get. Cost about the same, so I don't know why anyone would order the smaller ones, but might be useful info if you go junkyard hunting.

The master cylinder should be no problem with the different capacity callipers and slave cylinders since NAPA, at least, uses the same part # for the replacement 1/2, 3/4 and 1-ton unit.

I haven't done this yet, and probably won't be doing this myself until spring so that's really all I have right now.

The above has been done many times by others, by all accounts, so do your own checking but it's supposed to be very straightforward and people who have done it say braking is improved very noticeably.

But, when it comes time to do it, I will be also checking into the brake proportioning valve and see if there are options or issues with that as well. Anti-lock brakes might complicate that swap, so it could be a complete no-go; on the other hand anti-lock might mean it's not important to look at at all.

But, with a change like this, I would be personally interested in how the brake balance front/rear is affected, and if it makes the brakes harder to modulate ... I have to deal with ice, snow, mud, gravel, and pavement, loaded and unloaded.

Pavement isn't usually an issue provided the rears don't lock up prematurely but with low to zero-traction situations it's not necessarily a good thing to trade off progressive feel for all-out stopping power.

Trouble is I'd have to drive the truck after changes to figure that out, so I can't offer anything more in that regard right now.

 

Somebody asked about slotted/drilled rotors. I am not a fan in trucks, and tread carefully there with cars and motorcycles.

The problem is they are not as good at taking heat, which is pretty much a quick description of stopping trucks.

They are susceptible to shock cooling which will happen if, for example, you get into puddles or standing water with hot rotors. It only takes one shock cooling incident to warp a rotor.

There is such a thing as a drilled/slotted rotor that can take that stuff, but you can pretty much guarantee it won't be cheap ... upwards of $500 a rotor.

There are a lot of products out there where the rotors are stock ones that someone machined with slots or drilling, and they price them like "race parts" even though they're not. This is not a trivial procedure ... done wrong and they will warp if you look at them funny.

In fact you can warp them just by the machining process itself, and you can hide that by resurfacing them, boxing them and shipping them out to the unsuspecting buyer, but they are already junk at that point, since stresses have built up and are going to show themselves as soon as you actually put some heat to them in braking.

Even though they are heavy and they rust, a cast iron rotor is the best at dealing with heat; and the thicker the better. So, stock OEM parts for trucks in particular are really the way to go, in my opinion. It's true that unsprung weight plays a role in handling and braking, but the heavier the vehicle, the heavier these parts can be without adverse effects. A Viper can use much heavier parts than a Miata and still be race-ready. So, I would say that you shouldn't buy that argument with a truck.

You should keep in mind they are selling show with these parts, and that does include the good examples as well as the bad ... after all, how do you evaluate a rotor without putting it on and running it?

The short answer is the catalog picture does all the selling. The good ones will have special metallurgy; the cheap ones will be off-the shelf stainless composition, but cost more than OEM iron. In terms of braking performance and longevity, it goes like this:

Actual high performance rotors
Your stock iron rotors
Fancy lookalike rotors

I'm not even sure you can get "real" performance rotors for these trucks, but true high performance parts can always be made by the guys who are in that business; floating rotors with blank hats are always available for your machinist to fit. There are also rotors that are kind of in-between "real" and "fancy" that may be good options. The trouble is telling them apart from the show-only ones without detailed specifications.

So, at best, be wary, and for most people, I say don't bother. Generally speaking, drilling is far more likely to be done wrong than slotting, if you feel a need to go there. If your truck is not going off-pavement and has bling wheels and tires you can consider it as part of your plans for overall appearance.

You may also be buying yourself a job changing tires; torque values are more critical with drilled/slotted rotors and broadly speaking many auto repair shops don't take enough care there. The shop that specializes in these things is probably OK but it's not likely to be the norm if you're far from home.

I don't know what high performance rotors would do for stopping distances with these trucks. Cars that stop in 120~130 feet from 60 is excellent performance; these trucks new, according to the road tests where they actually "test" something, would do about 160 feet with stock rims and tires.

Ten feet *is* a big deal in an emergency stop, but it's much easier to get the first 10 foot improvement than the last 10 feet. The easiest way is to just slow down a few mph ... stopping from 70 instead of 60 adds 40 feet (Car & Driver tests at 70-0 and the Rams generally are about 195-200), and don't forget that most of that 40 feet is the part where you're still going more than 60.

I don't think car-like braking is realistic with these trucks, and I'd be surprised if slotted rotors shaved much ... they're really designed to reduce braking distance with repeated stops, not one white-knuckle experience followed by 10 minutes of cooling while you change your underwear. If you're in the hill country and especially if you haul a load up and down then maybe. You might do well just looking at trying to improve venting ... a little tin pointing air at/from the rotor does wonders. The racers pay *a lot* of attention to that.

For real improvement (beyond what the calliper swap would give you) I would expect you'd need to take it to the next level; bigger rotors, which usually means bigger wheels, plus possibly a calliper swap and that may well mean the 3/4 ton swap wouldn't work either. At that level you can also then start thinking about a rear disk kit (also bigger rotors, etc) or a rear-end change with bigger drums.

I'd say logically the next cost-effective move would be careful tire selection; there's probably a few feet to be gained there. Actually, in case anyone doesn't realize it, you can lose a lot of stopping power with tire selection ... just compounds, not even going to different sizes, which also play a role.

Also, don't overlook pad/shoe selection. That's also relatively cheap and really does matter.