Axle questions

[Adam]

Okay, I have a HP30 and 44 to replace both axles. I'm in the process of buying gears and axle stuff. I got a few questions about the 44 though.

Are disc brakes worth the money for the 44? Its a pretty easy swap, and would be easier while the axle is in my garage.

Is a truss worth the money and hassle? I'd have to bring it somewhere and have it welded on.

Will 4.56 gears and 32's have my jeep running on vtak on the highway?

[xjthextremejeep]

id do discs on the 44 because disc brakes are alot better and easier to work on in my opinion, and if you have easy access id do a truss but people rarely break housings with 32's and if not you always have the housing from the first one you took out so you could always just put a truss on that one later if something did happen and 4.56 will be a little low if you have an auto cuz thats typically the gear set for 33s but it wouldnt be bad and idk if you have a manual

[crosbike]

I say drums are fine. I run them and have 0 issues and i stop fine.
Truss: you really dont need one. So dont waste your time or money
4.56 will be fine. plus i believe you are getting 33's soon right? even if you arent they will be ok.

[rckrdyxj]

If you have the bone yard parts available the crown victoria disc work perfectly with just 1 little spot that needs to be ground down.


I did the expensive tera flex discs on mine cause i could not find any crown vic parts and i must say it was still worth the $$ IMHO. If you want you can drive my jeep at the meet and greet, then a jeep w/o discs (your prolly) and see for your self. 100% worth it, drums fail, when wet, they clog up more in muddy shit, and dont stop as well.


All you need is the caliper brackets and calipers, get new rotors, and new brake hardware. Then open up the hub hole in the rotor just a bit to fit over the axle hub. Then grind down a small spot on the caliper bracket where it prevents it from seating right (its very obvious) then bolt on. And yes on caliper faces front and one faces back its just the design of the system. Also grab the e brake cables, i think the one you need is the pass side and the drivers side is a libby cable or zj.

Id run 4:10s on 32s if you staying 32s but if you plan to go bigger then go 4:56s. You will loose hwy gearing with 32s but have great in city and then vise versa when you go bigger tires with 4:56s. My jeep on 35s cruises at 80 with 4:56s w/o issue.

[Dr. Thunder]

Dec 28, 2008 10:09:32 GMT -5 crosbike said:

I say drums are fine. I run them and have 0 issues and i stop fine.
Truss: you really dont need one. So dont waste your time or money
4.56 will be fine. plus i believe you are getting 33's soon right? even if you arent they will be ok.

X2 on this.


Drums have more holding power by the way. More surface area. Why do you think big rigs use drums instead of discs? Because they can have an assload of surface area on the pads.

The main reason disks are an upgrade is because they get rid of heat a hell of a lot faster than a set of drums. So unless you will be takin the jeep to the the track on sunday and racing around the circle I'd save your money. In the offroading world that part is useless cause we normally drive at speeds next to zero. The other reason they're better is hope that mud won't affect them as much, however I've never had a problem with mud clog up on any drum setup.

Basically what I'm saying is disks are great for sique sig mods
If it costs you an additional 50 bucks, go for it. If not, spend it elseware.

[rckrdyxj]

I also noticed a great breaking advantage when rock crawling with my discs, They stopped the jeep where i hit the pedal and not where the drums decided to grip. i always felt as though they didnt hold very well on hills and off camber situations, say what you want about them only being needed for the track but my jeep stops on a fucking dime every time and never groans when i hit the brakes and has very strong braking power when sitting in strange situation on trails where you really dont want to be moved. also easier to work on and less parts to potentially break.

[Dr. Thunder]

Dec 28, 2008 11:21:29 GMT -5 @rckrdyxj said:

my jeep stops on a fucking dime every time and never groans when i hit the brakes and has very strong braking power when sitting in strange situation on trails where you really dont want to be moved.

Mine too

[rckrdyxj]

[Dr. Thunder]

Not going to argue with you. Your right, everytime I hit the brakes I slam into the first thing in-front of me.

[rckrdyxj]

Not saying your jeep does not stop but tell me, why do all moder cars come with discs? Why do people that restore classic cars that have 2 and 4 wheel drums swap them out for discs? Why is it that the trucking industry is starting to change to discs with newer rigs? Why do all comp rock crawler rigs run discs? Why do full size pickups come with 4 wheel disc brakes?

Yes your drums may stop your jeep but i bet they will never stop it as good as the exact same vehicle setup with with discs. (make a carbon copy of your jeep with full discs and compare, it will be better)

[Dr. Thunder]

I already said discs are better. I already said they dissipate heat better. Never said that a drum outperforms a disk in any aspect of performance except that they are able to create more stopping power from the massive amounts of surface area. I said big rigs use them because that is a fact. All that weight doesn't magically stop itself. Drum brakes stop it. Light cars do not need to stop 80,000 pounds of weight so a small set of disks does it fine, and in fact better than drums when they heat up. Drums are perfectly capable of stopping a 3800 pound jeep over and over again.

My point was that there is no sense in wasting over 600 dollars in set of fucking disk brakes when you can re-do a set of drums which will get the job done for less than 50 bucks. This is a jeep that sees street use and some rocks. Not the fucking road course. My point still stands, if Adam can add up the cost of the disk conversion and compare it to rebuilding the drums and the difference is small than do it. But don't waste retarded amounts of money into something your going to take out and drive over a bunch of rocks and basically destroy.

[Adam]

I have a list of parts and if its more than 200$ I'm not going to bother, but I think it is less if I get junkyard parts. One of our members works at the parts store near my house, so that helps too
I'm not really swayed either way yet. I know the drums can stop just as good. Its just the ease of disc's I like, since I don't know how to adjust drum brakes.

[KtmRacer419]

yea, i went from drums to discs

when the drums worked, they stopped fine,
but for some reason whenever i pulled a shaft something in the drum was fucked up and i ended up replacing parts, then my backing plate holes wallowed out so i said "fuck it" and did the disc conversion.

stopping power was better, but nothing crazy, I still need a dookiner master cylinder for my half ton calipers

[rckrdyxj]

If you can find crown vic parts at a bone yard it should easily be under $200. Just because i went the expensive route with my tera flex brakes does not mean that all are gonna be that expensive.

[KtmRacer419]

i did caddy eldorado brakes for about $300, if you don't need a parking brake you can do it for about $150 (all new parts) if you are a cheap asshole you can do it even cheaper with used crap.

now i stop like a caddy

sorta