8.25.... Brake swap, what else?

Know a fair bit about wrenching, but not a ton about trucks (mostly work on heavy construction machinery and snowcats).

About to do a disc brake swap on my 8.25

I ordered the mounting brackets from the local dealership ($24 a piece), and have found remanufactured calipers for $100/pc. I guess I still need to find soft lines, and I'm not sure about the mounting bolts. I can get a kit from advance for the bolts that fix the calipers to the mounting plate, But I'm not sure about the bolts that fix the mounting plate to the axle housing. Should I just order them from the dealership? Any other parts I'm missing? (I know I haven't mentioned the e-brake, not in the budget this week- it'll go on soon enough.)

Since I'm going to be that deep in the axle, I'm wondering if there's any other routine maintenance I should do? 97 xj with 105k or so on it. I've had it since 65k and I know that it hasn't had bearing or seal work done in that span.

THanks in advance to anyone who's got a word of advice.

I'm assuming you're doing the ZJ rear disc swap. $100 each for the reman calipers?? Mine were $30 each.

The caliper bolts are the same as the XJ front ones. Might make it easier to find.

There are actually nuts that hold the backing plates to the axle. You can just reuse the ones holding the drum brake backing plates on.

xjohnnyc said:

I'm assuming you're doing the ZJ rear disc swap. $100 each for the reman calipers?? Mine were $30 each.

The caliper bolts are the same as the XJ front ones. Might make it easier to find.

There are actually nuts that hold the backing plates to the axle. You can just reuse the ones holding the drum brake backing plates on.

Click to expand...

Yeah, ZJ disc swap. Where'd you get calipers that cheap/what model year are they? I asked for a 95 ZJ just because I know 94.5 is when disc brakes became standard for ZJ rears. I'd love to get a hold of them at that price. The caliper bolts I knew about, there's just a generic kit for them so I assumed they were same length front to back.

Good to know about the backing plate, I wasn't sure if the same studs would work or if I had to change them out.

What I'm really wondering is what else would be good for the axle/drivetrain to do while I'm at it? I don't want to find out that it's easy and only a couple of dollars to do some basic service after I've put the rear end back together.

Autozone has the calipers for $29.95. Kragen is $41.99.

When I did my brake swap, I threw on some Superior alloy shafts. I figured there was no better time to do it. Got them from Summit for $110 each.

29 spline aloy USA for $85 each http://www.drivetrainoutlet.com/Jeep_Rear_Axles-97_up_Cherokee_XJ.html