Rear brake upgrade?

[tornado_735]

I am getting tired of having better brakes on a 6,000lb Land Rover than my Grand Prix. I know brakes on W's kinda suck in general but i have no rear brakes whatsoever, making me ride the fronts even harder. Now, I keep reading about people upgrading to 95+ rears and was wondering what was involved with doing that. Is it difficult? Or is it a simple bolt in?

[GTP091]

You can upgrade the rears to a larger disc from 10" to 11.5" or something like that. You need to find a donor car at a junk yard and keep an eye on the ebrake cable. It sounds like the year change doesn''t allow the ebrake cable to go on without modifying. There is a sticky on this site for it.

 

Maybe you should invest in better pads, have your rotors turned, completely flush the brake fluid(maybe you have air bubbles), and replace the rubber brake lines first. The brakes on my GTP are awesome and they are only drilled rotors; otherwise stock. I would think you would have better stopping power with some servicing of the system you already have.

[Twenty]

My plans for brakes are stainless steel braided lines and some EBC pads. They should provide ample bite for daily driving.

 

Now when you say you have no rear brakes, do you mean they are simply ineffective, or that they don't work at all?

[tornado_735]

My plans for brakes are stainless steel braided lines and some EBC pads. They should provide ample bite for daily driving.

 

Now when you say you have no rear brakes, do you mean they are simply ineffective, or that they don't work at all?

 

They don't work at all. Hell, the driver side rotor doesn't look like it's been touched by the pad since I put the damn thing on.

 

I am probably just going to put new calipers on.

[55trucker]

It appears that the calipers sliders have seized seeing as only one side of the rotor is being used....I don't know if these are still out there...when my car was 5 years old (this problem kicked up a huge amount of warranty work on these cars rear brakes and mine was no exception) there was a replacement set of slider pins that some manufacturer was making from carbon fiber. I picked up a set of these and put them in and 15 years later they still are there and I've had no seizing problems at all. They may still be out there.

[Robby1870]

It's 94+ rears and you already have a '94 so you've got the best direct swap calipers available.

 

Just grease the sliders (pad and caliper) really well. From my experience with Ws, the front/rear bias is heavily toward the front (like most cars), but maybe a little more than most. I owned Ws for 8 years and don't think I ever had to replace the rear pads.

 

Bleeding the brakes should help some as well as the stainless steel lines.

[tornado_735]

It's 94+ rears and you already have a '94 so you've got the best direct swap calipers available.

 

Just grease the sliders (pad and caliper) really well. From my experience with Ws, the front/rear bias is heavily toward the front (like most cars), but maybe a little more than most. I owned Ws for 8 years and don't think I ever had to replace the rear pads.

 

Bleeding the brakes should help some as well as the stainless steel lines.

 

Aah ok. I will just replace calipers/lines then.

 

What is the difference between the stainless and rubber lines?

 

 

[Twenty]

They're more durable and don't expand as much when the brakes are applied, thus increasing the amount of force that's actually transferred to the pads.

[Robby1870]

Also, they don't absorb water as easily as rubber ones.

[BXX]

The 94-up setup is junk as well. The slides seize about as often as the 88-93

 

 

 

Gen 2 setup or bust.

[GnatGoSplat]

I've never had the rear slides seize on either of my cars with 94 calipers. I had to replace the rear pads on my 94 a few months ago so I know they do quite a bit of work.

 

I guess driving W-bodies for 16yrs, I just got used to it. When I drive my dad's Acura, I barely touch the brakes and it feels like if it weren't for the seatbelts, I'd go right through the windshield. I find it annoying.

 

[RobertISaar]

I barely touch the brakes and it feels like if it weren't for the seatbelts, I'd go right through the windshield. I find it annoying.

 

ONLY a W enthusiast can make that statement and have it not be a joke.

 

i share that sentiment as well. i like brakes that require some thought to use. the MC seems to get progressively stronger as i push down further until i get to the point of lockup. the GP brakes just suck out loud.

[GnatGoSplat]

ONLY a W enthusiast can make that statement and have it not be a joke.

 

Yeah, it's kind of embarrassing when I'm not paying attention and press it a little too hard. I have big feet and wear big heavy shoes, the pedal pressure in my Cutlass feels just right. I guess GM didn't improve brakes any in 10yrs, because my 99 Silverado pedal feel is the same as my 89 Cutlass.

 

The worst brakes are the ones on old cars. It's like the pedal will go 30% of the way with absolutely no resistance whatsoever, then it gets firm and pushing the pedal even 1/4" past that point makes the brakes lock up. Almost every old 70's beast I've driven was like that.

 

[RobertISaar]

my dad's 70MC has damn good brakes for being a 1970 disk/drum setup... then again, it has less then 60K miles on it too...

[tornado_735]

I don't mind the brakes on the GP but i know they could be better. I don't get too hard into the brakes on the Land Rover because i'm afraid of blowing another line out. The brakes on the jeep are ok, and the brakes on the Olds are great. The abs works great for being 19 years old.

[Crazy K]

I don't get too hard into the brakes on the Land Rover because i'm afraid of blowing another line out.

????????????

 

that is HORRIBLE. Ignorance is NOT bliss. You need to perform a "stationary brake test". this involves slamming the pedal as hard as you can a few times while the engine is running, but the car in park(or equivalent). If it is going to fail it would be better for it to fail now than when you actually need to stop. Cheaper, too, obviously.

[tornado_735]

I've already been faced with an emergency stop situation with it (involving sheep strangely enough) and it did fine. The abs even worked. I'm not that worried about it, but the fear that it could happen again is there.

[jaybaum96]

anyone have any links to a drum to disc conversion? I know its been done before...

[CSI_MuNkY]

anyone have any links to a drum to disc conversion? I know its been done before...

 

Your best bet would be to just go to the wreckers and find a disk car and get all the parts off it. You will need the e-brake parts and if you go to the 94+ rear breaks you will need some sort of mount where the cable comes through the floor. GOT 2BGM did this (or at least got the parts to do it) I will PM him and get him to pipe up.

 

Jamie

[GOT2B GM]

drum to disc is a bit more involved.

 

Need new rear knuckes, disc rear brake lines and hoses, 2 rear ebrake cables and brackets, proportioning valve, and of course calipers pads and rotors......whether its worth all that work is debatable.

[xtremerevolution]

Let me share my experience here.

 

Rear calipers on my 95 Regal have been a nightmare at best, until I figured out how to fix them. At first I thought my caliper was bad, so I bought a remanufactured one for a huge $150 or so at NAPA. This was before I found this forum. I was surprised at first when I bought it because the bracket seemed to be attached to the caliper. I thought that's the way it was supposed to be, till one day I put the caliper in a vice, popped the cap off the slider hole, put a 3/8" extension to the bolt inside, and hammered the hell out of it until the bracket came off. It was an interesting surprise when I discovered that even the remanufactured caliper had a seized slider.

 

Both of my sliders were siezed. The only solution to this problem was to buy new sliders and bolts, which are a little over $6 at any auto zone per side. I replaced the hardware (bushings and pad brackets), and greased the living shit out of everything.

 

My sister in law's 96 Regal is the same. This week I finished replacing both of her rear struts and mounts because she went over a pothole that blew the strut right through the mount, exploded the strut, and bent the trailing arm. In the process of replacing those, I discovered that on the driver side, only the bottom half of the rotor was being touched, and on the passenger side, only one side of the rotor was being touched; the other side was entirely rust. Sliders were seized on both at 117k miles. Took an significant amount of hammering and heat to get them loose.

 

I suppose if you're smart you'll replace the hardware whenever you replace the pads, and re-grease the hell out of everything.

[BXX]

They still sieze on the 94+ setup pretty quickly. You have no idea how many times I had to rip apart my rear brakes and clean and lube the hell outta the slides. Mainly the right rear was the worst. I did that 4 times, and it just recently siezed again on Venom,

 

The 95 CS I got from Venom, guess what, it siezed. I had to air hammer the fuckin caliper off the bracket.

 

Im so glad im upgraded now, I dont have to worry about siezed slides (Gen 2s dont have an issue with this)

[xtremerevolution]

They still sieze on the 94+ setup pretty quickly. You have no idea how many times I had to rip apart my rear brakes and clean and lube the hell outta the slides. Mainly the right rear was the worst. I did that 4 times, and it just recently siezed again on Venom,

 

The 95 CS I got from Venom, guess what, it siezed. I had to air hammer the fuckin caliper off the bracket.

 

Im so glad im upgraded now, I dont have to worry about siezed slides (Gen 2s dont have an issue with this)

 

I hear you there. Fortunately, I go through pads like nobody's business with the way I drive, so I make sure to replace the bolts, sliders, and bushings every time I do the job. Its an additional $30 for a huge peace of mind, and at 214k with the original calipers and brackets, my brakes work perfectly.

[WhatTheFehl]

I've always heard the 2nd gen Ws eat brakes really fast. Pads, rotors don't last very long. We had a customer who went on a long rant about how many times he's had to buy brakes for this one car, including taking it to the dealership saying it was a big problem in those cars (2nd gen Monte).

[xtremerevolution]

I've always heard the 2nd gen Ws eat brakes really fast. Pads, rotors don't last very long. We had a customer who went on a long rant about how many times he's had to buy brakes for this one car, including taking it to the dealership saying it was a big problem in those cars (2nd gen Monte).

 

I can't say the same for the rotors. I bought R1 blanks and haven't had a problem in the 30k miles I've had them on the car. Come to think of it, since I bought the car with 61k on it, I've replaced the rotors 3 times. I wouldn't call that excessive, especially if you consider that two of those times were because I didn't hear the pads squealing and the pads wore down completely and started grinding, so I just replaced them altogether. As for the pads, I've had problems with pads wearing prematurely, but that's only before I religiously replaced the hardware and greased everything to hell.