Things to Know About Rear Disc Brakes
When you accomplish a disc-brake swap on a rear axle, you do so for two basic reasons: To improve braking abilities and to lighten the amount of unsprung weight on your axle.
While the weight savings is certain, the improved braking is not. Why? Well, assuming your vehicle started with a disc/drum setup, your vehicle has a master cylinder designed for that setup. The problem: disc brakes take more fluid volume (not pressure) to engage. If you do not swap out to a disc/disc master cylinder, you will likely not be pushing enough fluid through the rear brake lines to properly engage the rear disc brakes. The simple solution, of course, is to find a disc/disc master cylinder that will fit your application.
Swapping to disc brakes in the rear doesn’t just mean better braking. It’s also a lighter package (20 pounds lighter per corner than a drum brake) and is much more compact and clean looking within the wheel.
Disc Brake
Drum Brake
01. Here are all the parts I used to do a disc brake retrofit to one side of the 14-Bolt using the Blackbird Customs disc brackets for dual-piston calipers. The brackets call for 2001 Dodge Ram 2500 rear dual-piston brake calipers and front Dana 44 8-lug rotors. After three days and four different trips to the store while my Blazer sat on jackstands, I finally got everything I needed. Hopefully, we can save you a couple trips and some time. Here’s a list of what it takes to do one side of a 14-Bolt axle:
(1) Blackbird Customs disc brake bracket/backing plate
(1) EBC front Dana 44 eight-lug brake rotor
(2) EBC ’01 Dodge rear brake pads
(1) ’01 Dodge rear dual-piston caliper
(1) ’01 Dodge rear caliper bracket
(4) Grade 8 backing plate bolts
(2) Caliper bracket bolts
(1) Hub seal
(1) Inline Tube flexible brake hose