The 01 Dakota I just bought has puny 9" rear drums. I'm new to dakotas (my other car is an 85 laser) and I want to know what is involved in switching to 11" rear drums? Will they even bolt up to a 8.25" axle, or can I just go find the backing plates from the bigger setup, bolt them on, and start putting parts on. I don't want to spend $1600 on a 4 wheel viper disc setup, I just want a little more stopping power. The 9" drums can't even hold the rear tires if I blip the throttle, and yes they're not worn or glazed and yes they're properly adjusted.

 

they arent gonna hold the rear tires, 80% of your braking power is in the front, and you likely have anti-lock rears, no dakota came with the 11" drums and i doubt any will just bolt up, just go with rear discs form an R/T, they bolt up and can be pulled from a junker for fairly cheap.
not to mention you're gonna need at least 18" rims to clear them.

 

thats kinda standard for the size truck, bigger than say a s-10...

 

Dakotas came with 9" or 10" rear drums. To the best of my knowlege the 8.25 rear diff has the 9" drums and the 9.25 has 10" drums. I'm not sure if they are interchangeable or not. As was stated above the drums won't make much difference since they only do around 10-20% of your braking. Plus with anti-lock rear brakes they aren't going to hold while doing a brake stand no matter what the size. You could always swap the rear for a differential w/disk brake setup from a durango but I don't think it would be all that much cheaper than the Viper setup in the long run.

 

Hey batman is it really that easy to steal the rear discs from an RT?

 

you gotsta be real quiet,
but yes,
all you really need are the brackets, you can get new calipers, pads and rotors, you may need to upgrade the valving, but if you get a new front brake valve and just replace the one for the rear.

 

REALLY now. I might just have to look into making that happen. What valving do i need to look into? And how do i know if i need to?

I maybe making an earlie trip to my favorite junkyard soon

 

i'll check around,
but the disc calipers need more pressure, you can replace the rear valve with one for the front.
daks have two separate valves or "junction boxes" one for the front and one for the rear. they are actually mounted next to each other. they look and mount the same but are different internally.

and not only the R/Ts had discs, they were an option, durangos also share the brake setups.

I'll ask some guys who have done it for more info

 

I would apprecate it (i wish i could spell ) feel free to PM or email me. Thatmod sounds like something that i would gain from on and off road

 

while ur at it dump the junk IFS and get a solid axle too!