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Improving e-brak on the Teraflex rear disc brake conversion kit

yeah, I got the explorer rear brakes on my XJ, parking brake is near worthless, even fully engaged I can drive off and not know it is still engaged, it won't hold on a hill. (33 inch tires)

what shoes are best? also for the calipers, what pads are best? I dont care about pad, shoe life, I want mega holding power.
 
The best results I've found so far is Raybestos "Elements" for the parking shoe and EBC truck yellows for the pads.
 
Jim Malcolm, thank you for the suggestion about using Dorman 924-741. I will add it to my rock auto order.

Black1990jeep, for brakes, I use:

Front: EBC GD1256 front rotors (drilled, slotted, vented) w/ OrangeStuff ED91255 extreme duty brake pads
Rear: EBC Green stuff rear brake pads E35DP61201

O-ring removed from proportioning valve to give more pressure to the rears, although it is still not enough. I had yellow in the front and green in the back previously, and the yellows wore out completely while the greens have more than half pad left. I'm using steel braided lines throughout.

I decided on the Raybestos element 3 for the shoes and put their hardware kit in my rockauto basket.
 
Oh, they dust like nobody's business and will leave this grey powder all over your rims. Hope your rims are black. I don't mind, except when my kids go and touch the wheels [and then go touch the walls in the house].
 
I totally agree about the dusting but I'm not seeing that kind of pad wear probably due to the WJ calipers in front. I tow heavy loads and needed the most brakes I can get.
 
Brief update: Yes the Dorman 924-741 contains the brackets for the Teraflex/Ford Explorer disc brake kit. In fact, it seems to come with two extra brackets. But, be aware that the gasket it comes with to keep dust and water out of the hole that the lever comes out of to meet the cable will not fit. It can't even be fudged. So if you are like me, your old gasket is pretty much destroyed and you've probably filled the gaps with RTV. You will need to re-used your RTV gasket mess.
 
That does look like it, but they are out of stock everywhere.

The design is generally lousy. The e-brake lever that sticks out tries to ride along the very top of the metal back plate and with the gasket trying to seal the top like this makes the gasket get torn to shreds as it gets clamped between two pieces of metal.
 
Just out of curiosity, why aren't e-brake drums in the front of the car as opposed to the back? Wouldn't there be better stopping power, esp. if your primary brakes fail, if it was in the front?
 
Because the "parking brake" was never intended for "emergency use", that and they wanted to utilize the transmission holding power. The old Jeeps had a drum brake on the driveshaft, the same idea is available these days in a disc brake.
 
Just out of curiosity, why aren't e-brake drums in the front of the car as opposed to the back? Wouldn't there be better stopping power, esp. if your primary brakes fail, if it was in the front?

Can't you imagine the fun young males would have with that? It would practically be a factory line lock. Set the e-brake and light 'em up!

Now if you could just get the tire manufacturers to see their own benefits in that situation and get them to use their lobby money pushing for the safety angle (because everyone knows "safety first") one could dream of that becoming a new government mandate. But you can only dream because you know someone would point out the fun angle, and there is nothing the government hates more than people having fun.
 
Can't you imagine the fun young males would have with that? It would practically be a factory line lock. Set the e-brake and light 'em up!

Now if you could just get the tire manufacturers to see their own benefits in that situation and get them to use their lobby money pushing for the safety angle (because everyone knows "safety first") one could dream of that becoming a new government mandate. But you can only dream because you know someone would point out the fun angle, and there is nothing the government hates more than people having fun.

I have an Atlas transfer case, so I can make my XJ go in front wheel drive only, and burn front rubber. assuming the jeeps parking brake holds well. of course many new cars are front drive with rear park brakes.

I also have old cars, prior to the mandate of dual circuit brakes. those cars have real emergency brakes! the hand brake was the back up brake system. I dont refer to those brakes as parking brakes, as they actually were the emergency brake, and are much more effective than modern dainty little parking brakes.
 
I have a relatively heavy (for a sedan) 1979 240D diesel Mercedes Benz. It has front and rear disc brakes with a rear e-brake drum system and I can say that its e-brake can definitely be used as an effective emergency brake, even when going down steep mountain slopes. The advantage it has over most modern vehicles is that the e-brake handle is actually a ratcheting foot pedal, so it is easy to get plenty of force on the pedal. I'm not sure why the foot e-brake pedal went out of style as it seemed like the superior design.
 
Final update: I was able to get the Teraflex e-brake working pretty darn well with those new Dorman brackets. The brake finally holds the Jeep on a front facing downward slope now. Part of the issue is the difficulty in getting the shoes and brackets on without any bending or offsets. Once you have some small bend or angle in the brackets, it won't fix itself. You need to take it all off and do it again. It took a lot of swearing.

Once that was done, I would tighten the spider wheel up so that I could just barely turn the wheel with my hands and body weight. I'd then drive it for a week, then tighten the spider wheel again so that I could just barely turn the wheel. Drive it for a week. And for a third time, tighten up the spider wheel, drive it for a week. With each week, you could feel the e-brake holding better and better. I was afraid that if I tightened the spider wheel super tight all at once in the beginning, that I'd glaze the shoes. So I did it over 3 weeks.

Anyway, that's what I did. Wife doesn't complain anymore.
 
I have a relatively heavy (for a sedan) 1979 240D diesel Mercedes Benz. It has front and rear disc brakes with a rear e-brake drum system and I can say that its e-brake can definitely be used as an effective emergency brake, even when going down steep mountain slopes. The advantage it has over most modern vehicles is that the e-brake handle is actually a ratcheting foot pedal, so it is easy to get plenty of force on the pedal. I'm not sure why the foot e-brake pedal went out of style as it seemed like the superior design.

The lever between the seats is a good way. you can easily modulate the ebrake that way. a foot pedal ratchet system does not allow as much control.
 
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