Harvo
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Chattanooga
This is a wrap up post to the Double Disc Brake Conversion Post. Hopefully someone searching in the future will find this useful.
I swapped in an XJ Dana 44 in place of mt 8.25 rear that already had the ZJ Brakes on it from a previous conversion. The goal was to keep the rear discs without having to even bleed the brake lines.
http://www.madxj.com/MADXJ/technical/technicalfiles/BAzjRearDiscsOnXJ/ZJrearDiscsOnXJ.htm
I started with the above "how to" article and went from there. Machining the caliper brackets was no problem. I know someone with a machine shop who did the work professionally. When you do this swap, there is a gap created by the thicker caliper mount. Rather than having a custon spacer made to fill the gap and hold the axle bearing in, I took the advice of member Stoneattic and used a stock plate that Rubicons use for the same purpose.
Of course Rubicons have a different axle flange stud pattern at the end, so I had to redrill the plates to match the holes that I had just machined into the caliper brackets. That was easy enough to do myself.
Something no one mentions in the how to articles is that if you are cheap and using the axle bearings that are already on the rear end, the plates won't slide over the bearings to the spot they need to be... so you have to cut them in half, position them, and then sandwich them in between the stock bearing retainer plate that is already on the axle, and the caliper bracket.
This sounded easy, but I learned a few things. Cut the bracket in half horizontally and not vertically. I did one vertically first. It worked, but in sandwiching it in, the stock plate applies pressure on the ends and wants to make the center (Where I cut) deflect outward. The stock bearing plate flexed enough to let it too. By cutting them in half horizontally, there is less deflection becasue there is less space between the studs in that direction.
I swapped in an XJ Dana 44 in place of mt 8.25 rear that already had the ZJ Brakes on it from a previous conversion. The goal was to keep the rear discs without having to even bleed the brake lines.
http://www.madxj.com/MADXJ/technical/technicalfiles/BAzjRearDiscsOnXJ/ZJrearDiscsOnXJ.htm
I started with the above "how to" article and went from there. Machining the caliper brackets was no problem. I know someone with a machine shop who did the work professionally. When you do this swap, there is a gap created by the thicker caliper mount. Rather than having a custon spacer made to fill the gap and hold the axle bearing in, I took the advice of member Stoneattic and used a stock plate that Rubicons use for the same purpose.
Of course Rubicons have a different axle flange stud pattern at the end, so I had to redrill the plates to match the holes that I had just machined into the caliper brackets. That was easy enough to do myself.
Something no one mentions in the how to articles is that if you are cheap and using the axle bearings that are already on the rear end, the plates won't slide over the bearings to the spot they need to be... so you have to cut them in half, position them, and then sandwich them in between the stock bearing retainer plate that is already on the axle, and the caliper bracket.
This sounded easy, but I learned a few things. Cut the bracket in half horizontally and not vertically. I did one vertically first. It worked, but in sandwiching it in, the stock plate applies pressure on the ends and wants to make the center (Where I cut) deflect outward. The stock bearing plate flexed enough to let it too. By cutting them in half horizontally, there is less deflection becasue there is less space between the studs in that direction.
