90 GMC Sierra, brake conversion?

sortasuave · January 13, 2006

Is there a brake conversion kit that will change the rear drum brakes to calipers for a 1990 GMC Sierra 1500? I'm sure someone makes a kit or has written up some directions on how to do this. Anyone know?

fossil · January 15, 2006

Baer Brake Systems

http://baer.com/cgi-bin/htmlos.exe/00579.2...756706400011464

fossil · January 15, 2006

Here's more info with pictures.

http://www.fullsizechevy.com/fscu/reardisc.shtml

pm26 · January 15, 2006

GM went back to rear drum brakes with the "05 1500 model year. Why would you want to go back to rear calipers? Evidently there was a major issue with their rear caliper brakes on the 1500 series. What I cannot understand though is why did they retain the caliper brakes on the heavy duty 2500 and 3500 series (as well as on 1500 HD)? If the caliper size was the problem, they could have borrowed the ones from the heavy duty series and use them on the 1500 series trucks.

Does somebody have a good answer? Personally, I have nothing against good rear drum brakes. I had them on my 95 Nissan V6 4X4 pickup and the original brake shoes were like new at 90K miles.

fossil · January 15, 2006

Cheaper to put on drums and then keep the price of the truck the same or a bit more. Equals more profit margin. I think the problem with the discs was that the ceramic pads were eating up the rotors which were probably inferior. Lots of people replaced the ceramic pads with the old composite/metallic ones along with the rotors and never had problems again.

January 15, 2006

Cheaper to put on drums and then keep the price of the truck the same or a bit more. Equals more profit margin. I think the problem with the discs was that the ceramic pads were eating up the rotors which were probably inferior. Lots of people replaced the ceramic pads with the old composite/metallic ones along with the rotors and never had problems again.

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I've had mine three years and have had no problems whatsoever. Could it be a particular climate or part of the country along with the pads that's eating up the rotors?

pm26 · January 16, 2006

One thing I noticed when I test drove a brand new "04 Z71 truck (last one with rear disc brakes) was that the brakes felt weak and stopping distances were long. And a lot of pedal pressure was required to stop the truck. The brakes on my '06 feel much stronger, even though I have rear drum brakes.

In principle, I have to agree that going back to drum brakes seems like a step backward. They surely could have redesigned the disc brakes to solve the problem.

citydriver · January 17, 2006

GM dumped the rear disc brakes due to customer complaints and other issues, they put the extra money into the front disc brakes by up-grading the calipers and bigger rotors. If I remember correctly the 2500 and 3500 series had better components made for heavey duty braking...somewhere in this forum there is a complete article explaining this,if I can find it I'll try and link it......I'm sure I'm gonna catch some flack for this next comment, but I prefer my drum brakes on my '95. Of course I also have a 14bolt rear end w/the bigger drums than the typical 1500, but they serve me well.

linust · January 18, 2006

Does somebody have a good answer? Personally, I have nothing against good rear drum brakes. I had them on my 95 Nissan V6 4X4 pickup and the original brake shoes were like new at 90K miles.

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That tells me they weren't doing their share of the braking. Probably out of adjustment or something. One great advantage of disc brakes is they are self adjusting and IME, require less maintenance. They also, on a properly designed braking system, have better feel and modulation than any drum-based system--a lot less parts to flex. They cool better, giving better fade resistance. I could go on...as noted here, drum brakes are CHEAP and have more things to go wrong with them (like frozen "self-adjusters").

If anyone has ever driven a Porsche, you know what I mean. And don't go into the lighter weight argument...the thermal loading to brake a race car from say, 140 to 50 lap after lap in endurance (or even sprint) racing is far greater than anything a 1500 truck goes thru (unless you overload your truck).

fossil · January 19, 2006

Put on a quality aftermarket performance disc brake kit with quality rotors and calipers (4 piston calipers all around) and you'll have a superior brake system over any drum system

pm26 · January 19, 2006

Does somebody have a good answer? Personally, I have nothing against good rear drum brakes. I had them on my 95 Nissan V6 4X4 pickup and the original brake shoes were like new at 90K miles.

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That tells me they weren't doing their share of the braking. Probably out of adjustment or something. One great advantage of disc brakes is they are self adjusting and IME, require less maintenance. They also, on a properly designed braking system, have better feel and modulation than any drum-based system--a lot less parts to flex. They cool better, giving better fade resistance. I could go on...as noted here, drum brakes are CHEAP and have more things to go wrong with them (like frozen "self-adjusters").

If anyone has ever driven a Porsche, you know what I mean. And don't go into the lighter weight argument...the thermal loading to brake a race car from say, 140 to 50 lap after lap in endurance (or even sprint) racing is far greater than anything a 1500 truck goes thru (unless you overload your truck).

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Well, I am not going to argue that rear drum brakes are better than rear disc brakes, as I have rear disc brakes on all my cars, except my 67 T-bird (has front 4 piston caliper brakes, though). However, keep in mind that the rear brakes account for only about 25% of the braking (75% is done by the front brakes). So this is the reason why my Nissan truck's brake shoes lasted so long. There was nothing wrong with that truck's brakes, because I replaced only one set of front disc pads at 65K miles on that truck.

If you ever own a boat trailer with brakes, I would advise you to stay as far away from disc brakes as you can. I have had horrible experience with disc brakes on my boat trailer. Drum brkaes seem to a better choice in this application, especially in salt water use.