drum brake to 12" C4HD rear brake upgrade - with photos

[IROCZman15]

Here is a brief run down (with photos) of my drum-to-disc brake upgrade project. Car came stock with drum brakes, and up front were the 10" discs. The fronts were upgraded in 2007 with a custom C4HD kit built by Ed Miller onto some 2" drop-spindles I had. the front setup is a PBR caliper with DS 13" rotors and braded lines, etc.

the new rear setup (photos below) is a 12" DS rotor, same PBR caliper, braided flex lines, parking brake modification, etc.. also built by Ed. He does great work and everything was spot on. Thanks Ed. it came with a proper disc/disc Proportioning valve too



i also bought a long main brake line for under the car (from in-line tube)


it came with a proper disc/disc Proportioning valve too . i removed the old one and took a photo, the new one was then installed. it is pictured in the first photo of this post




here are the old nasty drum brakes:



and they were removed ( the rest of the parts were already tossed away when i took this photo)


axles out


as you can tell from the photos, thea rear axle housing was pretty nasty. i took a few wire wheels on my electric drill and ground that sucker down to get all the grease, grime, and flash rust off of it.



only
after pulling out the axle bearings and seals (which were really in there!)



then hit it with some metal primer. yes brown i know, but its primer


brown. ugh. but not for long...

and then painted it satin black


new brackets to hold calipers now mounted onto axle


just a pic i liked



so, unfortunately I DO have the project completed, but my phone isnt communicating with my computer all of a sudden and the rest of my photos with rotors, calipers, brake lines etc are all on my phone.. im going to look into repairing this tomorrow and then i will finish this all up.

just wanted to share

stay tuned for the next round of photos when i get them to load up to the computer

[IROCZman15]

was finally able to get the photos uploaded of the rest of the install













all in all a great upgrade. the kit had everything i needed except some ertra red loc-tite

all that is left is to bed the pads and season the rotors after another 100 or so miles of light use with the brakes. from everything i've read about this process. i am supposed to drive "normally" for a few hundred miles, then commence doing the heavy stops and such to bed/season the system. is this right . makes sense to me.

the only issue i seem to be having is that i hear a slight scuff as the rotor turns along the pads. its not constant, but speeds up as i accelerate, leading me to think that its an issue with the rotor.. or maybe i have the parking brake cable tension just a little bit too tight. im hoping that is it. even after driving about 30 miles with the scuff happening, i can touch the rotor and caliper and feel almost little to no heat coming from it. so i know its not really scraping heavily as im driving along (not using brake pedal is when i hear the scuff). conusing, but i'll figure it out. any ideas?

[sweetbmxrider]

Looks good dude.

[greenformula92]

could be that the pads are a touch too thick. that will correct itself in time

[Paul Huryk]

Good job man!

I did something similar in 1997 to my Camaro - went from 10.5" rear discs to the 12" Baer PBR upgrade. The hardest part was trying to get the 1/4" bolt that holds the rear together to pull everything apart (bought a snap-on wrench after breaking 3 or 4 others). Didn't need to put in a proportioning valve, thankfully...

[IROCZman15]

thanks guys. yea, maybe the pads are a touch too thick. im hoping its not a out-of-round rotor, but im going to try to get under the car this upcoming week and see if the e-brake cable tension needs adjustment

feels good to finally get this brake conversion done. i ordered the parts last year and they have been sitting in boxes since last march.

now this allows me to start getting measurments for my new wheels (hopefully Boze Forged - Injected wheels)

[IROCZman15]

drove the car a bit more after backing off the parking brake cable tension a bit, and the scuff is still there... it is not what i would call "rubbing" but its like just "shaving" the pad ever so slightly. anyone have any ideas?