drum to disc..how easy is it?

[orangecherokee]

i just got my new axles from an old j10 truck and unfortunately i don't know the year, but it does have drums in the front. my cherokee is lined for discs in the front. how difficult is it to swap this? do you just need to switch the backing plates and the put rotors on it? thanks for any info

nick :cool:

[Stuka]

just swap everything from the knuckle out. But your break bias will be messed up unless to you change two a master cylinder setup for front disc. As with drums front and rea the break bias is 50:50. With disc it is generally 70:30 to keep the back breaks from always wanting to lock up.

[orangecherokee]

so do i need to swap the knuckle too?

[dharmabum]

What year is the J truck? What year components would you be looking to swap on to it? There are a few ways to do it and if the J truck front end is older (closed knuckle) just swapping from the knuckle out wont work. You can do a swap using the J truck hubs etc... but we need more info to help. Also is it 5 lug or 6 lug?

[orangecherokee]

it's an open knuckle and it's a d44 w/ 6 lug

[Stuka]

the actual knuckle does not need to be swapped afaik.

[orangecherokee]

sweet, thanks for the info

[dharmabum]

If you are swapping parts from a 44 to another 44 you should be good to go. I was just concerned because you stated that it was from an early J truck and the real early models had closed knuckles and 5 lugs and the parts would not be a bolt on swap but still doable. It sounds like what you have should be an easy swap though. smile.gif

[Glenn_tx]

I'm sure you thought of this, but you'll need new spring mounts, I'm doing the same swap on my waggy and had to weld new spring perches and shock mounts on.

[ February 19, 2003, 08:13 PM: Message edited by: GlennTX ]

[Glenn_tx]

For the rear axle that is.

[Stuka]

ya he had that in another posst.. the front will be fine.

[orangecherokee]

yeah Glenn i'm trying to whoop that task as we speak. rockjeep44 hooked me up with some info on the rear axle. ok, i haven't welded on it yet but i'm trying to get the measurements square, any suggestions?

[Glenn_tx]

I did mine the other day. I think I welded new perches about 3.25" inches inward from the existing ones, measured hole to hole. This should give a total width of around 44", hole to hole. I just left the old ones on in case I ever get a J10, also just lazy. I also tilted the axle back a bit to straighted out the u-joint angle.

[orangecherokee]

how much tilt did you go with?? and if those measurements are acurate i might just use them.

[Glenn_tx]

UMmm. I haven't installed the axle just yet. I'm waiting to get a set of parking brake calipers from FSJeeper. I'll let you know when I get it in. I just eyeballed the tilt so who knows how that will work out. I didn't tilt it too much though.

[orangecherokee]

well, if you can let me know. i've got to get mine running by march 14th for the leaders meet and greet for the east coast gig.

[Glenn_tx]

I hope to have it in this weekend, we'll see how it goes. I just measured from the middle of each spring pack, while the old axle was still bolted on and centered those measurements on the new axle and welded away.