Disc Brake Conversion??

That's just throwing good money after bad. Reinventing the wheel. The cheapest thing would be to replace the old shoes, drums and s-cam tubes. New s-cam tubes/bushings are cheap and there's nothing wrong with drum brakes. Or, how about the next time buying a truck get one that came from the factory with discs on all the axles?

 

If I’m in a position to do that, sure. This one fell into my lap and it is what it is. But I agree just doing a few grand to freshen up the drum setup is going to have to be good enough. Already put 8 new tires on the back a couple weeks ago and 4 good used aluminum wheels a few weeks before that to get rid of the grungy old steelies on the inside. (Made a noticeable ride quality improvement shaving that 40 lbs or so off each corner.)

I’ll have to look further into the s-cam housings though because that would suck to have to re-use the old ones. I’d be satisfied enough that I did it right if everything from the hoses to the drums got swapped with new stuff.

 

This is pretty rare though. My mechanic has always cautioned against discs because he only sees the bad stories but how trouble free they are 99% of the time makes it worth it to me. I put 600k on my first truck with full discs, one pad chance, no other maintenance period.

Second had front discs, a few hundred thousand on that truck and never touched em.

Third (current) truck full discs, 600k on truck and they are fine, one pad change so far and one rotor because an ABS tone ring warped so I just replaced the rotor while I was in there. $350.

 

And nothing to grease either is nice. Except for the caliper slide pins as on any other disc brake but that's something done only when the caliper comes off to change the pads usually. And DOT wont even look twice at them if you get pulled in for inspection.

 

I had a caliper go bad and it was dragging just enough to not be felt but enough to melt all the seals and wheel speed sensor. The sensor actually started on fire when I stopped moving. Then it happened again because the dealer used a cheaper non Bendix caliper. At least it was covered under their warranty the second time and I made sure they used the correct parts.

Traded in my last truck a little over 500K with 1 front pad set changed and the OEM rears still near 50%. Thats on a truck that was regularly doing over 200K lbs gross.

No need to pull the caliper to change pads. 1 pin and the retainer plate us removed. Pads slide out the top of the caliper.

 

My buddy purchased a cut off with disc breaks. He plans on having it done in February. We are think its going to be around $20K including the painting.

 

Complete caliper/pads/brake chamber combo run around $650 on all my trucks/trailers)Bendix). Had a O/O who's caliper alone was just under $1500. Don't remember who's system it was(Meritor?).

 

I figured around 10 if I did the painting, did all the refurbishing on the cut off, basically did everything but the welding, I would be lengthening though to, so add in drive shaft to that.

 

My buddy is going to stay at 290. You will definitely save some money buy doing as much as you can your self.

 

There's nothing wrong with them you can just knock the old bushings out and clean them up good as new. If your s cam shaft is wore out replacement kits usually come with a new tube that already has the new bushings in it. Saves time versus cleaning replacing the old tube/bushings.