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BRAKES
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FRONT ROTORS
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For the front, I got the cross-drilled and slotted rotors from JC Whitney. They came from Canada.

I decided to give them some color.
This stuff looks great on clean metal, VHT Anodized Red Tint Spray.


Comes out a deep red, even more transparent than the Testors Transparent Candy Apple Red.

We went ahead and started to install the brakes and struts.
Here are my new Cross Drilled and slotted rotors as they went on

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FRONT BRAKE CALIPERS
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The front brake calipers were smoothes by Joe & painted Spies Hecker single stage red, that matchs the cars body color, and then were installed.

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2004
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DRUM TO DISK REAR BRAKE CONVERSION
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NOTE:
Thanks TomP, from TGO, for all the valuable information. Much of the following information is paraphrased from his rear end conversion threads!
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I had gotten a 3.73 disc brake rear from Hawks 3rd gen. Parts. We decided on the 3.73 for the increased braking power of rear discs, as well as for the gears quicker acceleration.

For this conversion I went with a stock 1984 non-posi 3.73 disc brake rear. The posi s back in the early 80s were complete crap anyway. They were very apt to fail and cause more harm then good. Thanks for the heads up TomP!

Now the 1989 and older disc brake rears had braking problems from the factory. On 82-88 rear discs GM released a recall and Technical Service Bulletin with info on them. The return spring in the piston doesn't "return".

Well GM came up with a retrofit rebuild kit for the pistons. The recall kit for the 82-88 rear disc brakes is GM part # 18019028. One thing to note- the kit does NOT come with the copper crush washers for the brake lines; make sure to pick these up before you take your brakes apart. www.gmpartsdirect.com sells them for about $35. With this piston rebuild the calipers would no longer suffer from the piston fail.

The recall kit was straightforward. It came with 2 pistons, 2 new caliper return springs, 2 caliper rebuild kits, and (the shocker) 2 brake-pad-to-piston clips! The installation was straightforward; a basic rear caliper rebuild, except substituting the new parts for the old. Joe completed this retro fit before the rear was installed.

When upgrading from a drum rear, it is said the 82-89 rear discs require the J65 (4 wheel disk) master cylinder. Up until '90, GM used (2) master cylinders, including 1LE. - the J65 for disc/disc cars and the J50 for disc/drum AND 1LE. Starting in 1990, GM dropped the J65 MC and strictly used the J50 in ALL F-bodies - disc/disc and disc/drum.

Due to this information, most recommend swapping both the master cylinder and the proportioning valve. So if they can be gotten from the junkyard car as well, get them.

I purchased a 1LE proportioning valve and Joe swapped it on. However, I stuck with my stock J50 (disc/drum) master cylinder. In my case, I decided to keep my J50 master cylinder since it had already been polished and they was no way I was going to polish another one!

See the J65 Master cylinder was designed with a low pedal ratio for reduced free travel and a firmer and higher effort pedal for the high performance buyer. There was a GM bulletin (Bulletin # 84-88; Section 5 (V); Date: March 1984) stating that people hated the feel of the J65 brakes so they made available the J50 Master cylinder as a replacement. So in pre 1990, when GM customers used to come in and complain about their J65 disk/disk brakes...GM would actually swap on the J50 disc/drum master cylinder. (the one that was on my car) In 1990, the J50 became standard equipment for the disc/drum and disk/disk cars.

Now if you are planning to do a swap, it is recommended to find an 89-92 disc rear. Those are the best, and you can re-use your existing J50 (disk/drum) master cylinder. Grab the prop valve too. GM still sells 'em for $80.

After much scrubbing and cleaning, we swapped on the stock 1984's emergency parking brake cables. The emergency brake cables are what makes the brake adjust as they are used. They are very important and must be gotten with the rear-end.

The rear-end was cleaned and Joe painted it with the same body color red...The calipers received the same treatment.

I was unable to get the cross drilled and slotted rotor I wanted for the rear. Someone screwed up and I got sent the 89 and newer version. So I got a stock set with pads.

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BRAKE LINES
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I then decided on an Earl�s (EAR28A520) Hyperfirm stainless brake line upgrade. It is said that the braided lines offer more support for the brake line then the conventional rubber line. It does not allow the brake hose to expand, and thus allows all the brake fluids pressure to be applied to the rotor by the caliper's piston.

Along with this upgrade, I switched to Silicone brake fluid. I got tired of the regular brake fluid killing my paint. Now some say that the silicone does not work as well under heavy driving conditions and hard braking. For example while auto crossing or road racing, it is said that the increased braking heats up the brakes and thus the fluid. At high temperatures the silicone fluid is said to make the brakes feel spongy and less responsive.

Well I had the chance to test this with some hard laps on a road course. The silicone held up great. I never felt the brakes go spongy brake. Now I may not have run the car long enough, or the drilled & slotted rotors were doing their job & keeping the brakes cooler. In fact, the car itself got hot and it had to rest first!

Overall, I'm very happy with the swap. My car brakes great with its silicone fluid & disc brake swap!

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HOME PAGE

Follow this link to additional information on the car not found on this site!
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DIRECTORY FOR RAIF'S HANDLING SITE
01 Site Overview
02 Rims
03 Tires
04 Shocks & Struts
05 Lowering Springs
06 Panhard Rod & Lower Control Arms
07 Steering
08 Sway Bars & Wonderbar
09 Strut Tower Brace
10 Old PA Racing A-Arms: Failure
11 Old PA Racing A-Arms: Passenger side damage
12 Old PA Racing A-Arms: Driver side damage
13 Subframe Connectors
14 Underbody View
15 Brakes <<<
16 AJE Racing: Tubular cross member
17 AJE Racing: Tubular A-arms and coilover conversion

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