[chronos]

I was looking around the wrecker down the street when I came across a Daytona with rear discs. Inspired by 1991z24's thread about installing Daytona disc brakes in his car, I asked how much they would cost. I got them for $50 because they said the car "might not be around at 4 o'clock." It had a date with the crusher. I quickly went home and got my tools and came back. I removed the daytona brakes myself and I also grabbed a rear wheel hub off an 89 z24 for $30 to use so I can check the machining without taking my car apart. I disassembled the brakes and removed the 4 bolts holding the assembly to the axle. For less than $100 I got almost all the parts I need! Now I just need to get the brackets machined and get the e-brake parts. The setup I got was from an 89 Daytona ES with 10.5" solid rotors with the drum e-brake inside the rotor.

There were a number of other Mopars with the same rear disc setup, As well as 2 Fieros with rear discs as well. Would the Fiero setup work on a J body?

 

[cahilj]

JuicedZ4 looked into the Fiero setup a few years back. It can be done, but not as easily as the Mopar stuff.

 

[sleeper]

something about mopar on my bow tie bothers me... :nono:

 

[88ragtop]

something about mopar on my bow tie bothers me... :nono:

I have chrysler rear assemblies on mine. And the turbo compressor housing came off a nissan. I guess that makes me less of a GM man.. the NVG transaxles are half chrysler anyway.

There's plenty of guys that would prefer to not drive a ford, yet they run ford 9" rears..

Gotta think more like they did 50 years ago. You use what you can afford and what will get the job done.

- Frank

 

[seanski]

JuicedZ4 looked into the Fiero setup a few years back. It can be done, but not as easily as the Mopar stuff.

probably also to do with the fact those calipers are expensive and have the internal ebrake

 

[sleeper]

something about mopar on my bow tie bothers me... :nono:

I have chrysler rear assemblies on mine. And the turbo compressor housing came off a nissan. I guess that makes me less of a GM man.. the NVG transaxles are half chrysler anyway.

There's plenty of guys that would prefer to not drive a ford, yet they run ford 9" rears..

Gotta think more like they did 50 years ago. You use what you can afford and what will get the job done.

- Frank

i was just being sarcastic... if anything i applaud the guys that figure this out, i wouldn't ever guess to even think about using a daytona or neon rear discs on a cavalier.... ya know?

 

[88ragtop]

i was just being sarcastic... if anything i applaud the guys that figure this out, i wouldn't ever guess to even think about using a daytona or neon rear discs on a cavalier.... ya know?

Mhmm... Here's how I figured it out.

First, I looked at a listing of wheel bolt patterns (from a place selling aftermarket wheels) and noted all the vehicles that had a 5x100 pattern with a similar offset to the J body.

Once I had that list, it was fairly easy to narrow down what had rear discs and what didn't, either from memory of stuff I've wrenched on, or by looking at replacement parts on autozone/advance's website.

I didn't want anything that had the parking brake in the caliper, they're a pain in the ass, so I removed those from the list.

This left me with a few vehicles, but the two that stuck out were the Neon and the Daytona. Similar in size, weight, very abundant in the yard..

Took this short list to the U-pull-it yard with a tape measure, walked around for an hour and looked at the cars. I knew I was going for the tubular beretta axle, and felt that the daytona style spindles would be easy to adopt to that axle.

At the same time I was doing that, Cahill was playing with Neon parts. IIRC, we both finished up within a few weeks or maybe even days of each other.

After buying the parts, I was talking to Six Shooter and found out he had used the daytona assemblies on a J axle a couple years earlier.

Here's my original build-up threads:

<LINK_TEXT text="http://www.v6z24.com/jbodyforum/rear-di ... discs.html">http://www.v6z24.com/jbodyforum/rear-discs-in-progress-56k-warning-t66997,highlight,rear+discs.html</LINK_TEXT>

<LINK_TEXT text="http://www.v6z24.com/jbodyforum/rear-di ... discs.html">http://www.v6z24.com/jbodyforum/rear-discs-and-new-suspension-complete-56k-warning-t67378,highlight,rear+discs.html</LINK_TEXT>

- Frank

 

[cahilj]

At the same time I was doing that, Cahill was playing with Neon parts. IIRC, we both finished up within a few weeks or maybe even days of each other.

Now that I think about it, it was within a few days. Great minds think alike :wink:

 

[slowolej]

cahilj wrote:

88ragtop wrote:
At the same time I was doing that, Cahill was playing with Neon parts. IIRC, we both finished up within a few weeks or maybe even days of each other.

Now that I think about it, it was within a few days. Great minds think alike

So... how long was that after I mentioned I'd bought a set of Mopar rear discs and calipers?? And yet, I've never started the swap. I still think I can do better in terms of balance although the C / H body rear calipers I originally planned to use wouldn't be too bad.

If you're embarassed to say the parts are form a Mopar, say it's a "Kelsey Hayes designed system with J car specific modifications." Sounds so much more technical that way.

 

[chronos]

Well I just got the brackets back from the machine shop today. They look pretty good. It cost $120. I checked the fitment on an axle at the junk yard, and I can see where the ebrake cable part sticks out and hits the flat part of the axle. When I looked at a mopar I saw that they have a round spacer between the axle and the back of the bracket. I was wondering what you guys think about making a spacer for the jbody axle. It looks like it will need 1/4 inch steel plate.

1991z24, what fittings did you use to connect the calipers to the jbody lines? I'm going to route my lines the same way. Thanks for any input.

 

[cahilj]

So... how long was that after I mentioned I'd bought a set of Mopar rear discs and calipers??

Was that when I came up to visit you all those years ago? I don't remember....

I was wondering what you guys think about making a spacer for the jbody axle. It looks like it will need 1/4 inch steel plate.

I think you would be better off grinding down the top of the bearing flange on the axle. That way you'll have no issues with the wheel rubbing the fender, since the caliper bracket already bumps it out a bit.

 

[mars_man]

Kind of a related question :

Does a line locker eliminate the need for an e-brake ?

Would make a much cleaner install...

 

[barrok69]

Kind of a related question :

Does a line locker eliminate the need for an e-brake ?

Would make a much cleaner install...

No. the point of ebrake is an independent system so if your primary lines fail... you still have some sort of braking ability. Line locks just go on your stock lines and "block off" fronts or rears depending on application, so if your lines fail, the line locks won't do anything unless the failure occurs on the other side of the line lock by chance.

 

[SuperDave]

hmm... Line lockers.. I forgot about those, i think i have a kit somewhere that i bought for the T/A years ago. :twisted:

 

[Six_Shooter]

The axle that I built for The Raven is now under JuLu's car. Quite worth the effort IMO. The difference between the way I did it and the way I see other's doing it, is I used the entire Dodge set-up including hubs. I made a new plate, actually a pair for each side, to be welded to the axle, inplace of the orginal plate. I don't like the idea of machining the backing plate, just to use the J-body hub. Also due to the fact that there is a differnce in over all width between the two hub assemblies IIRC, which can effect the way the caliper and brake pads seat against the rotor, along with possible clearance problems between the rotor and backing plate. I chose to use the entire assembly because it works together, as that was how it was designed.

The hardest part was getting the e-brakes to function, I used the J-body e-brake cables, and modified the ends a little bit, and also cut a couple coils out of the springs to get it all to line up and work flawlesly. The only problem with this was that because of the design of the j-body cable, it was difficult to get it to bend in close to the hub. The smallest rim that can be used is a 15" rim, not a problem for most, but to some people this could be an issue. I didn't really like it myself, because I wanted to be able to run the stock 14s on The Raven for a complete sleeper effect, but I got over it rather quickly. :lol:.

 

[chronos]

Now I'm thinking it might be easiest to notch out the ebrake cable area or the bracket and just seal it up. I'd need a 3/8" space to make it fit, plus it looks like I'll need washers between the hub face and the rotor to keep the rotor from rubbing on the backing plate. I don't think I have the 1/2" of clearance between the tire and the fender lip. The inside of the bracket also needs some minor grinding in order for the hub mounting plate to fit properly. If I had the time and means, I'd get a beretta axle and fab it all up, but unfortunately anything like that is out of the question. Thanks for the suggestions so far. I'm hoping to get this done soon.