rear brakes -> disc? (cant stand drums anymore)

[jasonb]

few weeks back i decided i was going to fix the terrible braking on my pathfinder. i went after the fronts first and put hawk pads using their high torque street pads. then i went after rears. i found porterfield r4s compound rear shoes and put those with new drums. pedal feel improved huge. felt braking with light press. pressing harder was very linear. so i went on my road trip very encouraged.

 

then i went off-road. no big deal, just dirt roads in the desert, all high speed stuff but very washboard. it required hefty braking when i would come up to some obstruction in the road, followed by high speed again. after about 30 miles of this the brake pedal feel was back to ****** again. long travel and not linear at all. on the drive back home on highway, the pedal feel seems to have returned almost back to where i started. sigh.

 

so i'm thinking seriously of putting rear discs on this thing. i was reading about it here http://nissannut.com/projects/H233b_disc_brakes/

but i'm not sure how ebrake is going to work and the details of differences in bearings/axles.

 

has anybody done it? advice appreciated

[87pathy]

its normal to have to re-adjust them after initial installation.

 

if properly installed and adjusted, i doubt you'ld even know the difference between drum and disk in the rear.

 

Unless, its an offroad only rig, where you would get @!*% in the brakes all the time.

[jasonb]

its normal to have to re-adjust them after initial installation.

 

if properly installed and adjusted, i doubt you'ld even know the difference between drum and disk in the rear.

 

Unless, its an offroad only rig, where you would get @!*% in the brakes all the time.

 

in principle i agree that you need to re-adjust them as they break in (there is a lot of pad area there). thats fine with me, but what i felt is a much different pedal when i was offroad and for a few hundred miles following until it gradually improved. i'm wondering if the little automatic adjuster was rattling around on the washboard roads and loosened things. it was weird.

 

i also do a lot of towing (approx 4300 lbs) so i'm essentially twice regular weight, so i want all the brakes i can get.

[87pathy]

you tow 4300 lbs with that pathfinder?

 

for the safety of eveybody on the road, i hope you at least have a good set of trailer brakes.

 

 

if you really want disk brakes, just get a new rear axle housing, going to be the easiest way. I think you can get them from frontiers, and x terras, but don't quote m on that.

[jasonb]

you tow 4300 lbs with that pathfinder?

 

for the safety of eveybody on the road, i hope you at least have a good set of trailer brakes.

 

 

if you really want disk brakes, just get a new rear axle housing, going to be the easiest way. I think you can get them from frontiers, and x terras, but don't quote m on that.

 

yessir. it adds up fast. i'm just towing my track car (18' trailer is approx 2000lb and the miata is 2286 wet). trailer has brakes on one axle, but that too is a work-in-progress as i'm not completely satisfied with them. i'll probably put brakes on the 2nd axle so i can get braking distance down to what it would be without the trailer.

 

miata needs brakes too, i'm getting big time fade. am i praying to the wrong god?

 

(don't cry foul on the miata, it has a nissan drive train )

Edited July 29, 2010 by jasonb

[MY1PATH]

I love my disc brakes, I never regret putting them on. but the R50 drums may be better than the older ones were.

either way, things to look into for your situation. Fresh bleed get all the dirt and air out of the lines and before that some braided stainless lines will reduce some of your fade as well vs stock rubber lines.

Also check your brake booster vacum check valve, it is responsible for consistant pedal feel and response when all other things are working normal.

 

Lastly, maybe brake sooner and not as hard? these aren't race cars.

[OldSlowReliable]

^^ pictures/howto?!?!?!

 

Did you break your pads in correctly? I just put new pads on my malibu (ceramic lifetime replacement from autozone with cheapo rotors) broke them in nicely, and they work great (only did front disks)

 

You could be experiencing green fade

[jasonb]

thanks everybody for the ideas. i have two pieces of info to fill out the puzzle: 1) the long pedal lasted several hundred miles over several days. pedal wasn't squishy, just longer and less linear braking response (like you get when the rear brake shoes need adjustment). 2) driving around town today i noticed the brake response was back to the original good feel at the start of the road trip. i haven't changed anything. weird.

 

lucky for me i only changed the rears before the trip. the fronts were broken in, so it wasn't dangerous per se.

 

oh, i just had an idea. i should pull the drums and make sure there isn't oil on the shoes again. (i just had the axle seal replaced few days before the trip because of this problem). i'm thinking that could possibly account for this if oil got on the shoes, then got burned off again.

[MY1PATH]

when you did your axle seals (inner) did you pump fresh grease into the bearings? If not the outer seals (grease seals) will leak any oil the bearings were holding from the previous leak.

 

I followed nissannut's guide when I did my disc swap. It was VERY straight foward. I also used the FSM to rebuild the parking brake drums inside.

 

Overall my stopping is better but the biggest deal is that my drums felt useless over 80mph and the disc are pretty consitant @ all speeds.

[jasonb]

when you did your axle seals (inner) did you pump fresh grease into the bearings? If not the outer seals (grease seals) will leak any oil the bearings were holding from the previous leak.

 

I followed nissannut's guide when I did my disc swap. It was VERY straight foward. I also used the FSM to rebuild the parking brake drums inside.

 

Overall my stopping is better but the biggest deal is that my drums felt useless over 80mph and the disc are pretty consitant @ all speeds.

 

did you swap discs on r50? how did the ebrake workout? if you had a pic of the brake hardline routing i'd like to see that too.

 

thanks!

[MY1PATH]

No my swap was wd21 to wd21.

But I beilve nissan nut also has a guide for the 33spline rear ends too.

[tekazgtr1984]

Yes, he does. He goes on to explain it requires the backing plates to be switched in order to do it.

 

Not sure how the e-brake works, though.

[180sx]

Yea, I was looking for that guide, because he did it on a D22 Frontier (33 spline), which would work for us. But just like Tyler said, it requires changing the back plate. But that damn e-brake...hmm...wonder if you could just take the cable from a WD21 and use it (probably not long enough...damn)

 

Jose

[jasonb]

I'm gonna have quite a pile of parts to install pretty soon to freshen up the rear. I got lower ruggedrocks lower links and new springs and bushings. I also got backing plates, axles, and brake hardware from junk yard 94. incidentally, it was an auto with rear disc. (why should a 94 auto have disc, but it wasn't an option on my 96 5speed SE? go figure).

 

my plan is to make some garage space and take everything apart. i'll check out the brake hard lines and ebrake cables first. if i was smart i would have taken pictures at the junk yard so i could post side-by-sides... oh well. i'm figuring worst case for brake lines is to get some straight line stock at local auto parts store and bend it to fit. ebrake maybe slightly more pita as i think the r50 ebrake is routed different.