step one: here it is in its current configuration, notice that the rear drums are way exposed and have hit rocks many times. plus, this conversion shaves almost 120 pounds off the rear axle. the total weight of the kit including rotors and calipers is about 65-70 lbs. one 13x3-1/2 drum weighs that much in itself. now jack your truck up and make one side 2" higher than the other, this will keep the gear oil leakage to a minimum.

 

next, back off your e-brake cable adjustment as far as possible, this will make life much easier. now, remove your axle, brake drum and hub (you may have to reach in the drum with a screwdriver and back the adjuster off if there is a big lip inside the drum keeping you from sliding the drum off). you'll be left with the backing plate/shoes. remove the brake line from the cylinder and cap it with a vacuume cap to keep fluid from leaking. remove the e-brake cable - it may help to dissasemble your brake shoes to make getting the cable out in one piece easier.

 

now to the brackets:
they fit the eldorado calipers i had a little tight. make sure they just slide in the brackets. a little VERY light sanding/grinding and they fit perfect, do not over grind them- just a very little at a time and keep re-checking. do not grind the caliper, as this may lead to it sticking later. the bracket is what is important to fit perfect to the caliper. also while your at it, take the step drill and de-burr the holes that mount the brakets to the axles (test fit the bolts in the holes), and take a file to the other burr that is on the inside of the large circle end. this is important as this centers the braket on the axle stub.

 

now mount your brackets angled towards the rear. this ones mounted on the driver side. here's a pic of what we're after and what is being built: pay close attention to how the caliper bracket is oriented, it does have a front and back side.

 

now to make the brake cable bracket.
start by cutting a 8" piece of the 2x3 angle. bevel and round the corners. using the above pic as a guide, use the 2" side for mounting the cable (9/16" hole) and the 3" side for drilling the (1/2") mounting holes. take note of where the holes are drilled, this will keep the cable lined up with the arm on the caliper when it's all mounted up.
to locate the holes and for cutting the half circle out, use the caliper bracket as a guide/template. i made the lower hole closer to the center of the angle and the upper one towards the outside. first cut the circle then drill the holes for the bracket. you will also have to modify the caliper bracket to allow the angle iron bracket to bolt down. here's a pic:

 

after painting it and bolting it all back on, check the fit. the shorter 1" long 1/2"x20 hold just the caliper bracket and the 1-1/2" long 1/2"x20 bolts hold the caliper bracket and e-brake bracket. make sure to pass your e-brake cable OVER your leaf springs, no point in doing this if you leave your cable low mounted where it WILL hang on everything:
(showing rt side bracket)

 

now to mount the hydraulics. this can work for either e-brake or non-e-brake setups.

cut a 2" wide piece of the 2x3 angle. drill a 5/8" hole in the center of the 2" side, and a 9/16" hole near the top of the 3" side. take 5/8" washer and place it on top of the inside of the bracket. place the bracket in a logical position on your most outboard u-bolt. hopefully you have plenty of extra thread on your u-bolts. attach your bracket using a 5/8" nut on top. on my particular setup it made sense to put the bracket on the back position on the driver side and the forward position on the passenger side. attach the brake hose using a brake hose clip. now remove your hard line and cut it to length. position the flare nut and re-flare the line. re- attach, and you can pinch rubber brake hose if need be to keep fluid loss to a minimum. pic:

 

actually it was easy. here's how i did it:

for standard truck calipers:
mount them with the bleeders facing up. use new brake line copper washers. temporarily mount the calipers in the brackets. get the hose facing correctly and tighten. release your clamp on the hose. check your master cylinder level and let them gravity bleed. as your doing this, move the caliper around with the bleeder open and facing up, tap them a little with a wrench to knock loose any bubbles. this should remove 90-95% of any air in the caliper.

for Cadillac Calipers:

if using the Caddy calipers this next step may seem wrong but it will make sense in the end. swap them left for right (mount the left side caliper on the right side of the vehicle, and the right caliper on the left side). this will leave your e-brake lever on the caliper mounted in the correct position: high and out of danger. of course your bleeder will be facing down. verify that the piston of the caliper is fully seated and make sure that the indexing hole in the piston is facing out and will line up with the tab on the brake pad, see the pic for how it MUST engage in the brake pad. temporarily mount the caliper in the bracket. attach the brake hose and tighten. now remove the caliper and turn it so the bleeder is facing up. remove your clamp from the hose and open the bleeder. check your master cylinder level and let it gravity bleed. move the caliper around and be sure to get all the air out. also, if using caddy calipers the '76 Deville pads should be used, they have a thinner lining and when using new rotors like i did, it is the only setup that will bolt on. the pad lining must be 1/2" or less. the stock Eldorado pad thickness was about 5/8", too much and wouldn't fit the rotor. of course you can sand them down, but the Deville pads made it way easier.

 

last step, mounting the rotors.
take a close look at these rotors, they have flats machined on the back side for the studs to properly mount to. if you buy rotors and they dont have the flats, take them back and keep shopping untill you find some that do.

i will advise, if you have access to a shop press use it. it may even pay to have a shop swap the drums for the rotors for you. should be a minimal charge. if you damage the studs you wont be able to re-use them and they are expensive. lug nuts aint cheap either.

if you are trying this on your own, follow this:
first buy a couple extra lug nuts.
take one of your crappiest lug nuts and thread it on a stud 90% of the way. make sure the studs threads do not stick out. you can now bang the stud out, you may have to loosen the nut as it pushes out.

after removing all the studs, some slight tapping shoud remove the drum from the hub. tap on the drum, not the hub as you dont want to damage it. the drum is junk and doesnt matter. now put the hub face down on the floor and put the rotor in place. slide all the studs in place and hammer them back in place best possible. they may not go in all the way, so flip the whole assembly over place a washer over the stud, grease both sides of the washer. now, using a lug nut placed upside down (cone away from the hub, flat side down), tighten it using an impact to finish seating the stud.

 

finally home run stretch. mount your newly assembled hub and rotor back on the axle. re-install the wheel bearing nut, lock key and snap ring. do not install the axle shaft yet. install the caliper w/pads and tighten slide pins. now install the e-brake cable in your newly fabricated bracket and attach it to the caliper. push the brake pedal a few times. check that the rotor spins easily with the brakes off then stops with the brakes on. then apply the e-brake by hand pushing the lever, it should apply the brakes and verify that everything is working. re-install your axle shaft. now repeat on the other side. finish by topping off the master cylinder again and adjusting the e-brake cables. make sure not to over-adjust the e-brake cables as this can cause them to start to apply. leave a little slack.

 

so after the install i checked it all over. my e-brake pedal is nice and firm and i can stall the engine at idle in low gear just by engaging the e-brake. my old drum setup wouldn't do that, even though it was well broken in and adjusted properly. my service (hydraulic) brake pedal is also nice and firm and the brakes seem to work very well. the bake cable bracket doesn't seem to move/distort even when the brake is applied hard so that seems to be good. i'm going to take it out on the road next weekend and give it all a test but for now it seems great. thanks again to all here that have posted up thier caliper swaps, the info helped me get the right parts together to make this fairly easy.

 

Great write up. Just curious how much you paid for the eldo calipers? When I converted my Eaton HO72 to disc, I looked into running eldo calipers but NAPA wanted some ridiculous price even with a core trade in.

 

cores are $$50-75

everywhere i checked was $125+ per.

i found a 76 eldo at Pick and pull that still had the rear calipers. they cost me (with core charge) $25 each out the door. i found them on the internet for around $135 per w/core of around $45

when you look at the price of doing a driveline e-brake, it's kind of a wash.

 

so far they seemed to work better than the factory setup for this axle. even with the largest drum brakes chevy offered on this axle, it never really worked good. with it in crawl gear the engine could overpower the brakes at idle. now it stops it all up solid. i'm going to try it out over the next few days and see.

i know what ya mean about PNP. the antelope yard seems to be the coolest/ most friendly. i mainly used thier "parts tracker" to find the car i needed, i like other folks didn't want to have to spend a couple hundo to get new reman calipers that may or may not come with e-brake brackets and return springs.
while i was at it there was a '76 Deville parked next to the eldo that i got another set of calipers from. they almost work, but the piston is slightly longer and i would have to grind the pads down to make it fit. looks like they might fit if i could find a slightly thinner rotor (1/4" thinner). what i like about them is that they have the e-brake cable mount right on the caliper, and would have been a MUCH easier install.

 

Phenomenal write up. I was thinking about this the other day (I have the non-e-brake calipers on my 14b and I'd really like to change that soon) and was thinking that the e-brake bracket could also be mounted on the leaf spring plate as you did with the hydraulic line, except with a bit more support (I planned on welding some angle iron to it).

 

i thought about that, but it left too much to chance for looseness or play in the e-brake. keeping the brake cable mounting bracket simple and short makes it as stiff as possible. also, like what happened to me last trip out, if you shear a leaf spring center pin, you wont have problems dissasembling even more stuff on the side of the road.

 

Is no one else aware of RockAuto.com?

You can get these for $50 plus a core $40 core so total $90 without cores.

 

If anyone needs a slightly longer wheel stud I have found that the Dorman 610-189 is a perfect fit. They were identical to the stock stud on my 1974 14 bolt except that the overall length was 1/4 inch longer and all the length was added to the threaded part of the stud. This worked perfectly with the aluminum H2 rims I have on the truck now.

 

Good point

 

Can you check the pad to rotor clearance? I have found that the bracket holds the caliper too high resulting in the pads not making 100% contact with the rotor. The top of the pad's lining would sit 1/8" above the top of the rotor. Went for months trying to get Ruff Stuff to fix and after getting several different brackets and returning them convinced Dan to make a set with the caliper pin/bolt holes drilled 1/4" lower. When I received that set only 1 of them had been "modified" and the new holes were offset so I couldn't even get the caliper bolted to it. I ended up keeping 1 extra "non-modified" set and just machined out 3/8" of the bracket hole that bolts to the axle and will weld it instead of bolting. Just curious if you have the same issue with the pads being held too high on the rotors with those brackets?

 

This is common even on OEM

 

nope, my sit perfect with the edge of the rotor. i wonder if it was possibly incorrect rotors. maybe the parts guy that got you the rotors pulled the wrong ones or they were mis-boxed. if the rotor was too small a diameter that would explain the difference.

or what is more common that i have also seen (and i have seen this alot as i work for a dealership) is that certain aftermarket brake pads bring the suck when it comes to fitment. i have seen dozens of aftermarket pads this year that overhung the rotors by 1/8" or more. they seem to cast the lining in a shape that's a little too big.



the application i told the parts gal who got me the rotors was for a 1974 chevy 3/4 ton pickup with a dana 44 axle.

 

Nice write up. I have been throwing this idea around in the back of my head for a while. This may have pushed me to start looking for parts

 

Good writeup, SJ.

Another option for those who don't mind a weld on bracket, is to use the full round factory caliper bracket for a 3/4 ton Chevy. I like to use them because they seem a little more robust than the aftermarket ones, especially the threaded inserts for the caliper pins. The full round versions also provide an ideal surface for attaching the E-brake cable mounts.

I guess you could make a spacer and re-drill it for bolt up, but I have always just welded them on.

 

Pics or it didn't happen dahoyle. :flipoff2:

Sj, most of the stuff I've read about the eldo calipers, people always seem to complain about the lack of holding power of the e-brake. With the cable mount you've built, and the way you're running the calipers, it seems you've engineered that so that it actually works the way it's supposed to. It's been a little while since the install, what's your real world feedback? Does it still hold like it did when you first got it done? Noticed any slop in adjustment? Bitchin truck by the way. :smokin:

 

just got back from a little road trip today.
e-brake holds great, very solid. also had a couple panic stops from 40-50 mph, good braking no rear lockup (like others have complained of them working TOO well) just stopped as well as when it had rear drums. but my e-brake definately works better with the disks than it ever did with the drums. i stopped and for a test parked on a 20 degree downslope, held good just by themselves. my drum brakes would never do that without also being in gear with the engine stopped, they would always creep forward.

 

what year deville were the the pads for?

 

'76 deville.

 

Are you running the stock master cylinder or did you swap it for something different?

 

let me look it up. i am running a larger master cylinder- 1/8" larger makes a world of difference in pedal height. with the stock 1/2 ton master i had a reallllllly low pedal after i put the 'tons on.

 

Did you find what master cylinder you used?