antilock brake Axle Swap

[Begster]

Not to disagree with Begster because all we are talking about here is a difference of opinion but I have been very satisfied with the 10 inch drum brakes on my Dana 44. I rebuilt them prior to installation with new drums, springs, and slave cylinders. Thanks to Craiglist. They work very well for me and the parking brake works very well to hold my boat on the very steep boat ramp. The 1997 Ford Explorer I had before had a very small parking brake inside of the rotor "hat" and was not as good as the large drums I now have. Disks do cool better and clean out mud better than drums but that does not in my opinion make the stock drums bad. Lets remember the reason some XJs got the Dana 44 was for the towing package. If you are happy with the stock 9 inch brakes that you have now chances are you will be happy with the 10 inch drums. If you tow a lot in mountains you may want the disk brakes for the better cooling.

Bottom line is build what you want.

x2

IMHO, most drum brake problems are due to lack of maintenance.

And in the interest of tech, I'll describe my experience. I've read a lot about people who either have bad luck with the D44 stock brakes, or people who love them and work fine. I unfortunately fell into the first category. I did replace all the components when I set my axle up.

I've never been able to keep mine adjusted. A day after adjusting them they would already be unadjusted, leaving me with a soft pedal and crappy brakes again. I even had the adjuster cable that goes from the top post to the adjuster lever break after only 1 year (Rusted through, you can practically taste the salt in the air in my home town, and the car sat for a while). This left me with almost no brakes with to limp the couple of miles home. No lack of maintenance on the drums, I did the same thing I've done when I had the 8.25 on, and again with my other Jeep, and I've never had problems with those.

The last time I took the drums off, I noticed that the shoes had worn grooves into the backing plate where they contact it, which pretty much prevented the shoes from extending. That was my final straw with the drums, and I decided it was time to switch to discs.

Bottom line is build what you want.

I will agree.

 

[fyrfytr1717]

my D44 ABS disk brake build is still on jackstands, what does anybody need pictures of?

Still on jackstands? Bummer, I was hoping you already had it under the Jeep and just hadn't gotten around to doing the write up yet...

As for pictures, I was just curious to see the orientation between the sensors, sensor mounts, and tone rings. I'd like to know (for curiosity's sake) if I could leave my tone rings where they're at and do the ZJ disc brake swap or, if the location of the tone rings on the axle shaft is totally different.

I'm guessing the ZJ's are in the same position, just a larger size tone ring. Since both ABS equipped XJ's and ZJ's came with D35's, I'd imagine it would have been easier (and cheaper) for them to use identical shafts with different sized tone rings pressed on.

Now that I think about it, were you even using ZJ brakes, or were you going the Crown Vic route?

 

[tomcat]

Still on jackstands? Bummer, I was hoping you already had it under the Jeep and just hadn't gotten around to doing the write up yet...

As for pictures, I was just curious to see the orientation between the sensors, sensor mounts, and tone rings. I'd like to know (for curiosity's sake) if I could leave my tone rings where they're at and do the ZJ disc brake swap or, if the location of the tone rings on the axle shaft is totally different.

I'm guessing the ZJ's are in the same position, just a larger size tone ring. Since both ABS equipped XJ's and ZJ's came with D35's, I'd imagine it would have been easier (and cheaper) for them to use identical shafts with different sized tone rings pressed on.

Now that I think about it, were you even using ZJ brakes, or were you going the Crown Vic route?

yeah, still jackstands, i just got my tax return though
still need shock mounts, and a saturday to borrow my friends shop and welder

I am using stock MJ/XJ shafts, with ZJ tone rings and sensors, ZJ backing plates, calipers, rotors, e-brake hardware, and TJ disk-brake retaining plates. retaining plates were welded up them and the backing plates were machined to fit the housing bolt pattern. the biggest rub is that you cant use the through-hole in the axle to tighten the retaining plate because the tone ring is in the way, so you have to use a box end, and THEN finagle the e-brake shoes on... not impossible, but tight.

the cool thing is, if you don't get the tone rings far enough down the shafts (i used a grinding disk to clean the shafts and eye-balled the centering and distance, then heated them up and persuaded them down with a drift and a 3lb sledge :gee, with the way the sensors mount, you can actually space them farther out to match... hard to explain, i need to venture out with the camera

 

[fyrfytr1717]

yeah, still jackstands, i just got my tax return though
still need shock mounts, and a saturday to borrow my friends shop and welder

I am using stock MJ/XJ shafts, with ZJ tone rings and sensors, ZJ backing plates, calipers, rotors, e-brake hardware, and TJ disk-brake retaining plates. retaining plates were welded up them and the backing plates were machined to fit the housing bolt pattern. the biggest rub is that you cant use the through-hole in the axle to tighten the retaining plate because the tone ring is in the way, so you have to use a box end, and THEN finagle the e-brake shoes on... not impossible, but tight.

the cool thing is, if you don't get the tone rings far enough down the shafts (i used a grinding disk to clean the shafts and eye-balled the centering and distance, then heated them up and persuaded them down with a drift and a 3lb sledge :gee, with the way the sensors mount, you can actually space them farther out to match... hard to explain, i need to venture out with the camera

Looking forward to seeing some pictures. So you didn't have to have the shafts or rings machined? They were close enough to the right size that you could just get them to fit by cleaning up the casting on the shafts and applying some heat to the rings? Are your rings from a ZJ D44 or a ZJ D35?

There's a backing plate bolt issue with mine as well. Not nearly as severe, but on one side you need to leave the sensor loose on it's pivot point and rotate it out of the way until the nut it blocks is torqued down. Then you swing it back into position and snug it down. Do you think there's enough adjustability in the ZJ sensors that you could use the smaller XJ rings?

 

[tomcat]

Looking forward to seeing some pictures. So you didn't have to have the shafts or rings machined? They were close enough to the right size that you could just get them to fit by cleaning up the casting on the shafts and applying some heat to the rings? Are your rings from a ZJ D44 or a ZJ D35?

There's a backing plate bolt issue with mine as well. Not nearly as severe, but on one side you need to leave the sensor loose on it's pivot point and rotate it out of the way until the nut it blocks is torqued down. Then you swing it back into position and snug it down. Do you think there's enough adjustability in the ZJ sensors that you could use the smaller XJ rings?

no, i used the ZJ 35 rings and machined them, sorry, i left that part out. they are the same size as the XJ ones. i just grabbed the shafts from the junkyard that i got my backing plates from, pressed them off, and had them machined out. Can't remember the ID i had them done to, but it was a lot of material removed, but it was really close to the casting OD

 

[Talyn]

ZJ D35 Disc brake tone rings are not the same size as XJ drum tone rings, the ZJ is larger. On the other hand ZJ drum and XJ drum tone rings are the same.

They is not enough adjustability in the ZJ disc ABS sensor to get it close enough to a XJ tone ring.

 

[tomcat]

my mistake. i guess i never put them side by side. There is no adjustability for distance with the zj disk setup, so you would have to use the ZJ disk tone rings with those backing plates

 

[fyrfytr1717]

Cool, thanks for the info guys. I'm happy with my drums, but was curious to see what would be involved if I were to want to re-use my Super 44 shafts as part of a disk brake swap. Sounds like I'd just need to track down some ZJ disk brake tone rings and have them machined to the same ID as my current XJ tone rings. This is based on the assumption that while there is a difference between the ZJ disk and drum tone rings, the disk and drum axle shafts themselves are identical.