Rear disc brake conversion?

GRU

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i wont be much help here. what i did was machined up a new axle flange to accept super duty caliper mounting brackets and just used SD mounts, calipers, and parking brake assemblies including cables. then had to upgrade to a bigger master cylinder and decided to do hydroboost too. i was warned about using the caddy calipers that the pistons are real small. thus negating the need for a bigger master cyl but also, you dont really have more braking pressure. i wanted the best brakes physically possible.
 

averagef250

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I've done lots of rear disc conversions on trucks and muscle cars.

Don't ever, ever waste your money on a kit to put front calipers in the rear. They will not work right. Everything in a brake system has to match for it to work right. If you want rear disc brakes you have to do some serious investigating, measuring and reverse engineering to adapt to an older brake system or do it the much smarter way and use the entire brake system from a modern vehicle of the same GVW and lug pattern as yours.

You absolutely, postively cannot just put an adjustable proportioning valve in the rear brake line and make things work. You can dial it in to feel right for average driving then in a panic stop the rears won't have enough bias or too much and they'll lock to easy and you'll slide. The master bores have to apprpriately match the caliper piston areas, the caliper piston areas have to be proportional to each other to get the correct bias for the vehicle.

The 96-97 E350 econolines are a good choice. They have 8 lug rear discs in the 8 on 6.5 lug pattern and use the same masters as superduties so you can adapt an easy to find modern brake system and hydroboost if you want.

The front calipers/rotors in the rear are fine if you just have an offroad rig that you get tired of cleaning mud out of the drums, otherwise stick with drums.
 

Optikalillushun

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im not 100% sure but i think the rear disc E vans went on to the mid 2000s...cuz i was playin around one day at work and put our 2500 dodge ram wheels on a 2000 E-350 van...
 

averagef250

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I didn't know that! I've used the 96-97 stuff since I knew it worked and the interchange info I had access to said 98+ rotors are different, I assumed it was different because the lug pattern went metric, guess not. Thanks!
 

punkmechanic

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I work for a dealer and should kno but avoid vans like i avoid hondas. What rearend is under an e350. Dana or 10.25? If its a 10.25 i could do a straight swap easy.

Punk
 

zpd307

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i am very interested to learn about your flanges for superduty rotors! the cady calipers with the parking brake are from 72-76, not very abundant. if i was to keep the e40d, i would put the front chevy calipers on. but i will be converting over to the zf soon, as the auto is starting to flare on shifts, slipping on hard accelleration, and shifting unusually hard every once and awhile. so a parking brake will be a must. it would be nice to be able to use newer and more abundant rear calipers. i read somewhere where someone transplanted the superduty flanges and brakes onto a 10.25. but this is way passed my abilities......
 

averagef250

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Most of the newer vans I've looked under have 70's.

ZPD307, for crying out loud stay away from the GM calipers! They are front calipers used in the rear, the Caddy stuff is from the rear of a 5000 pound CAR. The only people winning from using these parts are the people involved in making and selling the parts to do it. I learned first hand they do not work more than a decade ago when the GM disc swap stuff started to become real popular. I put more effort and money into trying to make those parts work then 10 complete rear drum replacements would have cost me and I ended up tearing them off after I melted the 4th pair of rotors towing and went back to 1 ton rear drums. You know what? The drums worked perfectly and laughed at the same loads and grades that fried the GM rotors/pads. The parts fried because the rate/bias was wrong. No matter how I set up an adjustable proportioning valve, what master cylinder I ran, it didn't matter. The GM discs are a mediocre solution to a problem that doesn't exist. They are an expensive one too. You will spend around $500 on average to do it unless the parts just fall into your lap. You can buy a complete late model rear axle from a wrecker for that, probably get the entire brake system with it. If you're craigslist savvy you can do it for a couple hundred bucks or under.

If you don't feel I'm being accurate paraphrase some of the stuff I've written here and call a vendor for these parts like ORD. Ask them how well front discs in the rear will work on your drum truck compared to stock 1 ton drums. Ask them how the mismatch in master piston area to caliper piston area effects the versatility of a stock, matched braking system and how you can overcome this. Ask them how the residual pressure valve in the rear brake circuit of most rear drum vehicles (in the master cylinder often) effects disc brakes when they have 5 PSI of constant pressure pushing on the caliper pistons when not using the brakes at all. Ask them how an adjustable proportioning valve (pressure regulator) in the rear brake circuit is supposed to be a solution to a mismatch in the rate of fluid transfer from the master piston to the caliper piston in relation to pedal movement?

The answer you will get will be something like "The GM discs in the rear will work well for most types of driving and SHOULD work fine under your truck. If you want everything perfect you should keep your stock brakes."

The most possible bang for the buck you can get for upgrading any stock disc/drum braking system is going to hydroboost. My 11K pound empty 89 F350 4x4 stops like a Miata with 10K behind it (exageration, but not far from reality, it really does brake extremely well) and has 1 ton discs/drums with hydroboost.
 

averagef250

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Just to add one final note- IMO, most of the people looking at rear discs as an option for a vehicle they drive on the street often are looking for a solution to what they percieve is a poor OE braking system. 99.9% of the time these people have a vehicle with brake system problems.

I've owned, driven and worked very hard a few pre-1972 Ford 3/4 ton 4x4 trucks with 4 wheel drums and added power brakes. If a person drove one of those trucks unkowing what kind of brakes were under it they would have guessed front disc. The front drum brakes worked great as long as I wasn't driving through water, they are just a lot more maintenance to keep working correctly.
 

GRU

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in retrospect i do have to say i think i should have just done hydroboost and left the rear drum. but... my truck does stop nice. my 86 f250 i had previous had HORRIBLE brakes even after completely rebuilding the rear brake system. i wanted to eliminate that all together. that and with my machining ability and creative spirit i love a challenge and doing something no one else has done. so... custom axle flanges it was!! i am happy with it, but it was much more expensive than it may have been worth. i do whole-heartedly agree to stay away from the common caddy/GM front brakes. thats why i felt very comfy doing a SD swap. already matched to the truck.
 

Mat J

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in retrospect i do have to say i think i should have just done hydroboost and left the rear drum. but... my truck does stop nice. my 86 f250 i had previous had HORRIBLE brakes even after completely rebuilding the rear brake system. i wanted to eliminate that all together. that and with my machining ability and creative spirit i love a challenge and doing something no one else has done. so... custom axle flanges it was!! i am happy with it, but it was much more expensive than it may have been worth. i do whole-heartedly agree to stay away from the common caddy/GM front brakes. thats why i felt very comfy doing a SD swap. already matched to the truck.
so you just added super duty rotors and caplipers off of a 10.5? Do you have any pictures of your set up and how does it work. I would be interested in it.
 

GRU

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the axle flange pattern on our axles is a small square (or close to it) bolt pattern. the superduty and E-250s have a rather large trapezoidal pattern. i bought brake brackets for an E-250 and took them to work, put them on the mill and indicated all the stud positions. now i had my hole locations for making my flanges. on my new flanges i milled a recessed pocket to fit snugly over the factory flange and be flush with the flange surface. i had to cut the new flanges in half to get them on the axle tube and behind the flange. then i clamped them on and welded them up. then the E-250 brackets mounted right on. there was one problem, a royal PITA, that really messed with me. SD hubs are necked down much smaller in where they go inside the brakes. this is to clear the E-brake assembly. my 89 hubs are much bigger diameter thus creating big clearance issues between the rotating hub body and the springs holding the brake shoes together. i went through hell trying to relocate the spring holes and find springs that were small enough and strong enough that would fit. that honestly was the worst part. i really thought about designing this to be a bolt-on kit that i could sell. i still kinda wish i would have. and i do apologize but no pictures. i was always in such a hurry to get things done that i didnt document much of my custom work. i wasnt a member on here then so i wasnt thinking about all the people that i could have helped!!
 

zpd307

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how did you overcome the rotor bolt pattern issue. or is it true that the early e series with the dana 70 still had the nonmetric bolt patern.
 

GRU

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rotors were same bolt pattern. where the hell was that write-up last winter??? oh well... mines done and works great. btw, the write-up mentioned about the bigger master cylinder fitting. nope, thats how i ended up with hydroboost!!
 
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