'98 1500 Brake upgrade(s)
 

There has been previous discussions on a couple of brake upgrades for the '98 1500.

The front seems straight forward and a no-brainer by swapping in the larger piston calipers from the 2500LD.

The back however seems to have two decent options.
One being a simple swap to the larger GM slave cylinders.
The second being a swap to the '02 1500 axle with disc brakes... and having to move the spring pads and shock mounts.
There are other aftermarket disc conversions out there, but the P-brake hookup becomes an issue, and they're not cheap.

Other than the typical disc vs drum benefits, is disc going to give any more practical stopping power than the GM slaves?... after all, there is only so much brake you can apply before lockup, regardless of brake type.
Is it worth the extra expense and effort to swap axles?

I went from 1500 to 2500 disc all around. As you know th. Rear disk are about the same size as the little front 1500 discs. I had a massive increase in braking ability. but as I said. I am different from your situation.

With the same amount of work as swapping the rear axle you could swap a 2500 axle and not have parking brake issues.

2500 brakes are a LOT larger than the half-tons. :)

I think, in your particular situation (OP), just doing the rear wheel cylinders is going to have the best cost/benefit ratio.

Seen a few threads about this. I just have one question. How do the large single piston 2500 LD calipers compare to the dual piston 1500 calipers?
Sorry if I hijacked the thread lol.

Not at all... a valid question, and in keeping with what this thread is about... this thread is for comparing upgrade options/benefits.
The technicalities of actually doing the upgrades have been covered in other threads.

Dual piston calipers can more than likely develop more clamping force, trouble is, they don't fit on the older axles. The LD 3/4 ton calipers are a direct bolt-on for any truck with a single-piston caliper. I think in 2000, or 01, they went to the dual piston caliper on the half-tons. That's about as good as you are going to get on those.

On most (parts) sites, items seem to be simply listed for 2500's with the assortment of engines, but I don't see anything specifying 2500 LD or HD... it's just 2500.

How do we distinguish 2500 LD parts?

I found it Napa website. The 2500 LD was only offered a couple of years. Think I searched 1998, dodge truck, and it listed the 2500LD. I'll double check

Parts stores have some of the same issues..... When I went to get bleeders for my truck, I had them whip out with a caliper, so I could get the right size. Imagine my surprise when it was a two-piston caliper...... The single piston fellers are supposedly for the LD 2500's, but, my sticker on the door frame says 8800 pounds, and I do indeed have D60's front and rear..... It's kinda/sorta mix and match I guess.

Not sure what year they actually transitioned to the dual-piston calipers on the HD 2500's, I suspect it was in 98, or so..... but, most parts books do not reflect that.

Best bet is to call, and ask.... On nebulous parts of this nature, I prefer to just go to my local parts store, and buy. That way, if they are wrong, it's a simple matter to take them back, and there is no shipping charges, or several day wait for the correct part. Not to mention, the advance auto here, will price match online stores as well. :)

So trying to do this from my phone I'm coming up short, on my way to a off road race prerun. Don't remember how I found it yesterday.

In trying to narrow it down, I'm thinking 98-99 2500 with 5.9V8 might be the combination, but I'm not sure.

Some times in application notes I see 7500GVW as opposed to 8800GVW.
I take it that is the LD / HD difference.

Yes, it is.

Any brands to steer clear of?

Cardone, Centric, Raybestos, Power Stop, Wagner, Wearever, World Brake Resource ???????
I take it AC Delco, and SSBC are premium $$

I try and stick with Raybestos, Wagner, and AC Delco.

Thank you for your input, one and all.
The front upgrade seems straight forward now... oh, last question on the front;
I take it you have to use the 2500 LD pads with the 2500 LD calipers, on the retain 1500 discs?

And as for the back (that I thought was a single option), actually has two options for us 1500 folks.
I can go from the stock 24mm cyl to the Dodge 2500/3500 27mm cyl, or the GMC 3500 30mm cyl.
Obviously all the bigger Dodge guys are going to be GM cyl (this seems to be where most of the discussion is), but for 1500 folks, is 30mm too bigger jump?

For what little it's worth as I've not tried it myself, I would expect that 30mm would be way too much unless you also swap out the master cylinder. The stock 1500 master cylinder might not leave you enough headroom to safely suffer a single circuit failure, and it would really suck to crash your truck as a result of what seemed like a brake upgrade.

My back is biting at me so I'm not going to stay in the chair long enough to do the math just now. If I don't forget, and no one beats me to it, I'll post up some numbers tomorrow. Right now it's time for a hot shower, the burning of flowers, and communing with my insanely comfy sofa.

Use the 1500 pads. The 2500 pads are taller, and will give you some issues.

From notes I've seen elsewhere, going to the 27mm is a 23% increase in brake force, and the 30mm is 50% increase (though a basic area calculation gives me 27% and 56%).
In all that I've read on this upgrade, there was no mention of a bigger master being required, in fact any commentary on the master was that it was not needed, and that the same master cylinder is used on 1500, 2500, and 3500.

The only issue seemed to be some having lockup problems when unloaded... but most of these seemed to stem from incorrect shoe orientation when assembling, rather than cylinder size.

HeyYou,
So are your brake calipers the 7800 gvwr or the 8800 gvwr calipers? I've got the 8800 gvwr calipers on my truck and they are single caliper.

My door sticker says 8800 pounds.... but, single piston calipers.... It's a mystery to me. :D When I was looking at calipers, and told them 8800#gvw, they showed me dual piston calipers as the 'right' part..... but, no way those would fit on my caliper brackets.... I think that changed in 98 or something.

Mine are single piston. Got it at NAPA. Here is a link to one of my calipers if you are interested. It works great for me.

Yeah, mine look a lot like that, just not quite as clean. :)

Cool! I'm going to guess the shop showed you the wrong one and they changed the calipers in 98.

They changed a few things on the 98½ yr model... this could well be one of them.
A build date after May 31st 1998 is a 98½, I believe.