b/c upgrading brakes sux... like you said.. everyone wants to go fast,,, no one wants to stop,,, untill they have to

 

How much larger are the aluminum drum brakes? If they're too much larger, I think there would end up being a wheel fittment problem [&:]

I've been looking into vented drums myself. A lot of hot rodders take brake drums and have them drilled to drain water/bleed off heat. The problem is you have to know where to drill the holes, and how many to drill...and I don't have the time and money to experiment with that [&:]

 

soooooo... finally got the damn truck driving today... didnt go so well

frist off... the rods that push the shoes from the cylinders i had thought they were too long so i trimmed off 1/4 inch off each one... well turned out that they werent too long;... so since i shorted them... the throw on the cylinders were longer now and the pressure made the end caps of the cylinders to pop off and spew brake fluid all over the place... wasnt pretty... so now i gotta get 2 new cylinders AND find them little push rod jobbers...\

anyway

front brakes turned out great though... the EBC ceramic pads and the cross drilled rotors were great.. untill i didnt have any pressure from the rears exploding..

parts hunt will continue tomorow

 

OK! got it dialed in.. took the better part of the afternoon to finish...

results? 10000% improvment

i was shocked to realize how my rear drums werent performing... i ended up using some bolts i had laying around .. grinded down the heads to make the channels that were needed to key into the notches on the shoes,, and the dia. was perfect to fit into the cylinder. i do have the dodge ones on order but wont be in for a week... so im gonna let the bolts sit till i have to tear down the rears again.. other then that... pretty cut and dry.. i still ahve minor tweekin to do.. maybe some more bleeding since i also had the front calipers off to.. and im gonna readjust the rears after a week or so.. we will see

thanks Rom for the info !!!!

 

Nice job on the jury rig.

It took a while to re-learn the brakes on the truck but now that the toe's re-trained, I find myself just feathering the brake pedal most of the time. Still no rain so no feedback on lock-up potential for wet surfaces. These BFG's are pretty sticky and well behaved on pavement so right now I'm only SLIGHTLY apprehensive.

 

Ok, I heard some hard rain on the roof yesterday so I told the wife to hold my beer, grabbed the keys and bolted for the door.

Kidding ...

I took my beer with me ...

Ok, ok ... I wasn't drinking beer.

Here's a run down on my experience with the 1-ton rear brake mod when it's wet.

First I tried some hard braking in 2H. Nice straight stops, no lock-up. Then I tried some insane braking in 2H. Dump circuit activated, truck acted just like it did on dry pavement. Straight, controllable stop. Then it was time for some 4H (deactivates the RAWL but gives 50% more braking surface - no locker on the front). Hard stoping, no issues. TRYING to lock them - was able to and started a right handed drift but letting off the pedal arrested it instantly. Tried again, same result. Not scary spinny ... if you know what you're doing it's fine. I REALLY had to try to make it lock ... remember, I was locking up three wheels here ... and running empty.

Recommendations: In ALMOST all cases - I'd go with the GM 1-Ton cylinders. The RAWL will keep your bacon out of the fire most of the time. If you have a 4WD and use 4H when it's wet out AND don't 100% trust your abilities ... you might want to opt for the Dodge 1-Ton units. They're smaller and less apt to lock on you.

Another thing. Much of this information is tire dependant. The rubber compound on your set of tires will greatly affect how easy it is to lock them up when it's wet out. These BFG's are VERY well behaved on both wet and dry but I have no idea how your tires will react.

 

That pretty much what mine does. Hasn't scared me yet, been through the whole summer, rain hasn't given me a trouble.
Since the piston size increased at the wheel cylinder, you can apply alot more pressure to the breaking surface, but the rate at which it applies is reduced. I've set my shoes to just off the drum, so they hit without too much pedal travel. I get a better feel in the pedal. With the old cylinders it felt like the rears were "on or off" and it took some leg in a panic stop. Now it's more of an ankle thing with alot better modulation.

If your on the fence about this mod, I wouldn't worry about it being too strong.

I'm pretty confident I'll make it through the winter without hitting anymore trees. Although I've never stopped faster.[sm=smiley26.gif]

 

LOL... its funny you say that bill... it rained today..and drove into town looking for a nylint rockcrawler at walmart and on the way i had to slow down a little quicker then normal for a redlight... needless to say if i was going faster i would have completly swapped ends... i ended up side ways in a 4 lane road in a middle of a busy city.. luckly i didnt hit anyone or anything...scared the **** straight outa me...wife was with me...she was a bitt startled... needless to say..the rear brakes are torn down..the 1tons are off and the SSBC rear conversion kit has been orderd and will be here tomorow... my patience for drum brakes and lack of performance is deminished... ill start a new thread with the SSBC's on and my thoughts...even if these suck... ill still never have to deal with the drums again... witch to me...is well worth it... i really really really hate drum brakes...

 

If you almost swapped ends, then they were performing quite well You just got on the pedal too hard in the rain Either that or your RWAL isn't working correctly.

 

oh yea.. defentaly works really well... after that happend i went down a side street and the rwal started to dump like its saposed to.. not sure why it screwed up the first time... its mainly a compilation of having the rear drums off a bunch of times trying to fine tune the system... i had them apart and said the hell with this.. i just sold my neon and was sitting on a nice pile of huny's so i said screw it... make my life alot easier down the road... ive been wanted rear caliper and disks ever since i owned the truck..and hell... rotors and calipers looks cooler lol