Originally Posted by HeyYou

Front is a full-floater as well. I have no idea why they put such substantial axles in front differentials. Durability? Who knows....

Originally Posted by Rodney Shell

Here is a up date as to the soft brakes on my 96 2500 V10 2wd. My brakes were fine without pulling a travel trailer but with the trailer they were lacking stopping power. The pickup has as of now only 72K miles on it. The front pads have been change twice and the last time was at 67K miles and the rear brake were still in really good shape. Because of the soft peddle I installed a new master cylinder, new shoes on the rear, and the larger Dodge 1 ton= 27mm = 1.06" rear cylinders from O'Reilly's. I didn't want to use the bigger GM ones because of the lockup of the rears. The peddle was much firmer but after the new shoes got seated in the rears were wheel hopping and the ABS was working overtime. A lot of chatter braking a HWY speed. It is only my guess the factory master cylinder never gave the rear brakes much braking power or would bleed off on hard braking. I changed out the larger rear brake cylinders to O'Reilly's original size cylinders ( Dodge pre-'97 2500-= 24mm = .94"). That took care of the wheel hop, lockup, chatter, and still retain the much harder peddle. Braking power is much better also. Driving in stop and go traffic the rear really heat up compared to what they use to and I can tell I have loads more braking from the rears. While keeping the larger rear cylinders to see how it goes when pulling the travel trailer, but I still don't like the chatter and wheel hop that should return without the trailer. Here is a TBS from Dodge going to the larger rear cylinders.

http://dodgeram.info/tsb/1997/05-04-97.htm

Without any added weight my pickup weighs a bit over 6200 lbs. and 75% of 8800 GW is 6600 lbs.

For my pickup a few more things I found out about the 2500 and 3500 brakes. The front calipers are the same but the 2500 disk pads are tapered on the ends while the 3500s are not. The booster is the same but the master cylinder is a different part number. I don't know what the difference it in the two master cylinders is but the 3500 cylinder would bolt up to the 2500 booster. The bore of both are the same also, so there must be something different with the master piston (maybe).

My pickup is not a dually and I seen a none dually 3500 2wd. I check to see if I could get the rear drums for that none dually for my 2500 and couldn't find new or used what drums were used on the rear of the 3500. My guess it uses the same drums that I have that the shoes are 2.5" wide and the duallys are 3.5" wide. Of course the dually drums won't fit on mine because those drums are too deep but the same diameter. The 3500 2wd none dually I seen had the same wheels as I have but I didn't get to see what rear drums were on it.

Originally Posted by vmaxept

I know this is an old thread.. but -I have a a 2000 3500 DRW 8.0. I want to change the rear wheel to the GMC 30mm . NAPA says the OP given PN is invalid..
They have a 2000 GMC cly with piston at 1 1/4 -- 1/16 larger.
NAPA PN 9344 and 9345 .
Not sure these will fit?

I tow a horse trailer wanted a better rear brake stop power

Just changed the brake shoes to a better shoe then OEM, wanted to do the wheel cly since it is all open.

Any thought or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Truck is still great with only 89000 miles
Tnx