Joined: Wed Aug 11 2010, 10:15AM
Location: E WA
Posts: 1230
I bought a nice 2000 Sebring Convertible this summer to drive since my 1967 Polara 500 convertible still needs more time love and money. The Sebring will be much more of a daily driver anyway which I do not see happening with the Polara.
I got the base Sebring Convertible model and, of course, would like to upgrade some things. Autostick was available in upgraded models and i acquired the three components needed to change from pure automatic to autostick from a 2000 Dodge Stratus ES. These are the shifter, the instrument cluster and the transmission control module. Hopefully this will be a simple switch of the components but on the newer cars with all the electronics you never know.
The Sebring Convertible has tiny rear drum brakes with rear discs available as an upgrade. It also has pretty small front rotors (10.2") with larger rotors available (11.1") on the Stratus (Breeze, Cirrus).
I have acquired the rear backing plates to convert from rear drums to rear discs and hopefully will be getting the front backing plates to convert to larger front rotors later today.
The reason that I want to do these modifications are to improve the driveability of the car. Having driven it this summer for about 2000 miles, I am not thrilled with the pure automatic shifting. I also have a 1999 Dodge Intrepid ES with autostick and the autostick functionality works great. Much nicer to be able to hold the transmission in the gear you want to merge on the freeway etc.
As for upgrading the brakes, the stock braking performance is not very good, certainly not up to what i would consider modern standards.
My question to the site is has anyone done any of this stuff and do you have any useful insights?
I used to have an 04 Dodge Stratus, with rear drum brakes. I found a Stratus with rear discs, and just simply swapped out the whole assembly with no issues. Basically left the spindle & hub. Just had to replace the drum backplate with caliber bracket & plate. Only had to readjust the parking brake lever in the console