a ? on upgrading brakes for cheap

so the story is i am getting 33's real soon. i have mounted 33's before and the brakes suck. they arent good with my current 31's either. i put skyjacker brake lines on and bled the whole system and it didnt make it any better, it feels like there is a lot of air when i pump the brakes and have to push all the way down constantly. cant even make tires squeal when i brake. It hasnt been a huger problem with 31's but when i go to 33's quick stops will be a problem. is there a way i can make the situation better or do i need to upgrade somehow.

What year is your XJ, on the older XJ's you can upgrade to the bigger boosters. OR you can do a ZJ rear disc brakes setup.

when you say "older" which years are you speaking about?

84-94' I believe.
95' was the first year of the nicer break setup
Someone ring in if im off

if your right im happy im running a '94... secondly... is the bigger booster the one out of the newer system? or am completely off target?

Sephrion said:

if your right im happy im running a '94... secondly... is the bigger booster the one out of the newer system? or am completely off target?

Click to expand...

I think he means that the '95 and above have the larger brake booster. Does anyone have a write up for this? Would it swap right in?

Have you put in new pads and drums/disks? I replaced my old pads and noticed a big difference. I need to lathe my drums and disks because they look a little worse for wear.

Yup now that you mentioned it, it was 95 and abouve that has the bigger(double diaphram) booster. It should be a straight swap/ I believe MadXJ has an article on it . Do a search.

cheers

i have an 89 and i have done all the routine brake work. also where would i go about getting a bigger booster?

I second the search. I have been reading up on this exact thing for the last 4 days trying to gather as much info as possible before I spend the bucks to do something. Madxj does have an article but it is a bit jumbled if you ask me. There is an article on 4x4wire.com that talks of doing this with a ZJ booster and it takes up a little less space under the hood but gives the same power as the XJ one so relocation of the washer bottle and little things isn't necessary with it on older XJ's (87-90).
Search my friend, search (for brake booster or similar).

The articles give part numbers so you can purchase the parts at a parts store/stealer or go to a wrecking yard. The one I visited would have charged me 25 for the booster and 30 for the master cylinder.

Maybe I can help out here. I recently swapped out my Bendix system for a 96. I posted my notes from that at http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?p=229588#post229588

I got the parts from egypt1, http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=25261. In my dealings with him, he has been extremely helpful and reliable, which I'm very grateful for, as it's pretty hard to find Jeep parts in Sicily. Hope this helps.

Shawn

Lots of good info on brake upgrades here:

http://www.madxj.com/MADXJ/technical/techindex/TechArticleInx.htm#brakes