Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
I finally finished getting the cop car rims primed and painted. I had six rims, so did them all and then picked the best 4 to put on the car. Checked each rim for straightness too. Mounted each rim on the back of the wagon, back end jacked up of course, and then used my dial indicator to watch for run out ass the rims turned slowly the the car in low gear. They were all in OK shape...none were perfect but good enough.
I then had to bring in my old rims and tires down to have them swapped around. The old ones were 15x6.5...so not a huge change going to the 15x7. Not a huge change visually, but just enough.
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
And now the biggie....Been working on my rear disc brake conversion. Really did not need to, but I had bought all the parts about 5 years ago and was getting tired of looking at them on the self. So figured why not give it a go. So the follow posts are my trials and tribulations.
First off the kit. I went with the Scarebird kit. I recieved their brackets, in bare metal...they now come cad plated. Anyway with teh kit comes a list of the parts to use.
- 82-87 Lincoln rear rotors - 79-85 Caddy rear calipers and brake pads - 79-90 Flex hoses
The rotors I had to bring down to the machine shop and have the center register hole opened up. I did this first adn assumed that the rotors would then fit onto the axles with no problems. Well I was wrong. Turned out that the holes for the studs to go through were not big enough to slip over the shoulder of the mopar studs.
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
So back down to the machinest with a spare axle, the original drum and the rotors. He machined out the stud holes to fit over the shoulder on the studs and all was good. Cost me $20 total to get all the machine work done.
So now it was rear diff. disasseble time. Removed the rear wheels, disconnected the rear brake line, then pulled out all the brake hardware, and then finally had to pop out the E-brake cable. Now not sure if you know of this littel trick or not to get the cables free from the backing plates. Can't remember where I saw, heard or read it, but it works fairly well.
You need a small hose clamp and a screwdriver....Put the hose clamp over the end of the E-brake cable and clamp down...leaving the clamp about 1/4" away from the backing plate. The keep tightening it until all the littel prongs are pressed inward enough for the cable to pop through the backing plate. Might need to adjust it's position a few time to get it to sit just right and compress those littel tangs...but it will work.
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
After the E-brake cable was removed off then out came the axles, and off came the backing plates. Good thing I did the swap...the inner axle shaft seals were toast and had washed out almost all the bearing grease. SO I had to buy a couple new seals and install them first, then re-pack the axle bearings.
Scarebird bracket....
Axle re-installed....
Rotor installed...held in position with a coule nuts...
And finally the calipers and pads installed over the rotor...
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
In the instructions that came with the kit it tells you how to order "custom" E-brake cables...well I'm far to cheap for that. So I was looking at things and figured I might be able to make the stock cables work....with a little customizing.
First I put the cable into the back of the caliper where the e-brake is supposed to hook up...was very close.
Figured all I needed to do was open up the hole just a hair to get the cable to pop in just like it did in the original drum brake backing plate. So off came the calipers, and out came the rat file. Few minutes work had the hole opened up.
The I had to remove the return spring that was on the ends of the stock E-brake cable...this job sucked big time!! And even though I was wearing leather work gloves I still ended up with blisters on my hands and fingers. I would also recommend that you wear safety goggles too, since that spring steel when cut shoots off at a very high velocity. Had a couple pieces stick into my forehead!!
And then installed....Perfect fit...almost....
The RH side fit perfectly, but the LH side was about 3/4" short....So I had to come up with another plan of that side.
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
So after finding out that the E-brake cable was too short I tried to figure out what application might have a longer cable. Went on-line, and to RockAuto. There I was able to cruise the mopar cars, trucks, and vnas until I came across a cable that was close. A 89-95 Dodge ram van had a cable cae about 5" longer...perfect. So out the wreckers I went hoping. Turned ou thtey had only one...so I pulled the cable...it was not moving very well but figured I might be able to free it up.
So home with my cable, soaked it in used tranny fluid for a few hours, then began to work it back and forth....the cable evntually stripped off the plastic coating on the cable and then got all bound up...useless. So on to the next plan. I went out into my shed....and stared looking around. Turned out I had another RH e-brake cabel from some car. So back to the garage ad see if I can make it work.
I was able to route the longer cable cleanly up, over and around and then into the LH caliper....Sweet!!
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
OK so now comes the really fun part. The instructions that came withteh kit said to cycle the E-brake a couple times to get the piston to move up and the e-brake to set properly. You needed to do this "before" any brake fluid. So I did just that and nothing happened. There was almost no E-brake. Messed around a bit more and could not get it to work right. So back to the internet and start searching.
Turns out these Seville rear calipers have quite a reputation....and not always the best either. So many hours of researching netted me a couple choice pieces of info..One site said to remove the rear spring, then the big nut, and then use a 14mm wrench to sping the piston out and into position. Then re-install the e-brake lever and you'd be good to go.
So decided to try this...Remove spring...
Then remove big nut...11/16 wrench...
Then use the 14mm to tighten up the piston....turn it towards the front...where the e-brake cabel comes through.
Ok so went through this and it did move the piston out closer...but there was still way to much slop in between the piston and the pads/rotor.
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
So back to the internet. This time I found a factory GM service update on how to adjust the rear E-brake. It said with the e-brake cable removed, and spring re-installed, that you had to push it forward and then let it go so it would "snap" back. This snapping would then cause the clutch to ratchet up the piston and get the proper 1/4" movement in teh e-brake lever. Only problem was it could take anywhere from 30-100 of these "snaps" to get things in place.
So back out to the wagona nd tried this....it seemed to work on the RH side...but just wasn't quite right. LH side...nope, nada...was not working. By this time I was about ready to pull everything, drop it in the dumpster and put the drums back on. I was sittign there looking at hings when a thought came to me...what if the calipers were binding up? So I decided to pull the caliper and check all the mounting points.
Turned out his was one of my major problems. I had primed and painted the scarbird brackets, as well as the calipers had a heavy coating of paint on them as well. So out came the sand paper, some never seize and then re-install. This time everything ratched up properly...I had the 1/4" movement for the E-brake levers and all was well!!
Joined: Wed Oct 12 2005, 01:10AM
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posts: 2690
So now I had to deal with longer E-brake cable ends under the car. For me this was not such a big problemsince when I go the car the forwrd e-brake cabel had been cut. so I pieced it together with a chnk of rear cable from a parts car. A couple good cable clamps had everything working. So now all I had to do was loosen the cable clamps, move the rear section of cable forward, and tighten things back down.
But beofre I could do this I had to modify the clamp that holds the two brake cable ends. Beause I was now using two RH side cables (with large ends), and the stock clamp has one small hole (LH side) and one large hole (RH side) it would not work with the two RH cables. When I was at eh junkyard for the van e-brake cabel I grabbed the clamp off the van knowing I would have to do this modification.
Now with the smaller hole opened up....
But then I discovered that the two cable were slightly different in length...so it was not pulling the e-brake lever evenly. So now I had to either lengthen the shorter cable....or shorten the longer one. Took me some time to come up with a solution for shortening the longer cable. I finally found a piece of metal inone of my scrap bins and was able to cut a small piece, then cut a groove down the middle for it t pop over the cable.
Then install it with a few wraps of tape to make sure it doesn't come loose.