Rear brake conversion 2001 Sport Trac

[Hamptons1]

Hi- I am looking to replace the 4.10 rear on my 2001 Sport Trac with a LS 4.10-I picked up one with 57K on it at the local junkyard from a 2000 Sport and am wondering if I have to change over the brakes. I have rear drums and the rear axle out of the Sport has discs. Anyone have any experience with this? I also have a 2001 Sport which has a 3.73 open rear and I am going back to pick up the 3.73 LS rear at the same yard but dont anticipate any problems in a Sport to Sport swap. I may be one of very few people to own both a Sport and a Sport Trac in Mandarin copper.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! You could swap everything over to simplify the process. Why not use disc brakes if you already have all of the parts?

 

[John_Rock]

Don't quote me on this, but I have always heard that the proportioning valve in the master cylinder is different between trucks with drum brakes and disc brakes.

 

[WidgetTrac]

Has anyone here done this? I was wondering if all the solid ST's and XP's and 8.8 Rangers and Mazdas had pretty much the same setup, or if there were some good ones to seek for at a junkyard swap - better braking for heavy wheels & tires...

Or maybe a donor vehicle with a different type of caliper bracket (or a way to flip or space the brackets) with axles about 1-1/2" longer than ST axles but the same housing flange/flange length, or some other miraculous combination that would widen the rear track without wheel spacers, a housing swap, or different front/rear wheel offsets.

On second thought, the question I should be asking is if anyone knows of a (presumably Ford or Mazda) vehicle with 8.8 rear, springs on top of the axle, and rear disc with 5x4.5" wheel flanges somewhere near the ST's width or a bit wider...

but just keeping to the subject of stock type rear disc conversion, can someone please post about doing this on a trac, and/or share knowledge of which other donors to look for (besides later 1st Gens) ?

 

[RangerSVT]

It's easy to do, I've done this. The master cylinders are the same between disc and drum rears. What you need to do is pull the proportioning valve located on the mc out. It's inline between the rear brakeline and the mc. Remove this, bleed the brakes on all 4 corners after the rear axle/brake swap, and your good to go. You can either swap the entire axle, or unbolt the disc brake from the donor, unbolt the drum brakes, and bolt up the disc brake backing plate. Both the trac drum brake axle and the explorer disc axles are 31 Spline, and same bolt pattern on the backing plates...

SVT

 

[tooltime]

I was just wondering the same thing! Thanks guys! I just purchased an 02 ST 2wd pre-runner and was wanting to do a gear change for 33" tires and do a rear drum brake swap as well. Any clues on gearing?

 

[WidgetTrac]

SVT - thanks! do the caliper hoses bolt up to the drum hardlines, or did you also get the lines attached to the rear end?


TT - 4.56 with 33's is pretty close to 4.10 with 30's

Wow, just read the mods in your signature info - good score on the ST purchase!!

 

[RangerSVT]

Widget, I swapped the entire axle from an ex, but you can use the lines you have. You will need to shorten and flare the existing lines, and use the disc brake caliper flex lines. If you use the lines attached to the disc brake axle as in swapping the entire axle, the flex line to the frame will attach with no mods needed...

SVT

 

[RangerSVT]

Tooltime, like widget said, 456's. If you do a lot of wheeling or might go to 35's, you might want to run 488's now. The extra rpm's wont hurt the 4.0l, they like rpms and might even increase mpg's...

SVT

 

[shooterdude199]

Tooltime I'd love to see some pics of the rig man sounds badass!
To add: there is a thread I believe on the ranger-forums or on here that goes through the whole swap on a ranger on his existing axle. Worth to take a look but as far as like e brake and such I have no idea.

 

[tooltime]

How in the heck do I get pic on this thing? Im old and slow!

 

[bilzy7]

Make a photo bucket account at www.photobucket.com

Upload photos from your computer to your photobucket account via the "upload photo" button.

Go to photo and choose the IMG link, copy it and paste it into your post. Bam, your photo is showing in your post.