Rear wheel disc conversion?

[Blazar1996]

i have a 96 blazer and i was wondering is it possible to put the rear disc from a newer blazer on mine? since there crapy drum brakes right now

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[hillbillyinOhio]

yea,it is my understanding that you need to swap whole axle out. but I'll leave this to someone with more experience.

[lastcoupe]

I'm sure you could do this, but not only the entire rear axle, (If you do MAKE SURE THE DONOR HAS THE SAME GEAR RATIO IF YOU HAVE 4X4), you would also at the very least need to change the master cylinder, because the valving would be different for disks. Just an opinion here, but unless you are planning on doing ALOT of competative type driving/road racing with this thing, this mod would be a total waste of time/money. The rear drum brakes are more than sufficient for this vehicle in stock form, not to mention the replacement parts factor (these rear disks are in the neighborhood of $200-$250 each for new rotors, and they are prone to rusting etc...because they are exposed to the elements).

[swartlkk]

I do not think that disk brakes are any more prone to failure than drum brakes because they are out in the open. Heck, my old intrepid made it to 140k miles on the STOCK rear rotors & pads. That shows how little they actually do. Now a larger vehicle, the rears may do more work. Rear brakes do very little in the grand scheme of braking so for that I would say that unless you just want to see the rotors through your wheels... There really is very little reason to upgrade to rear disk brakes.

And yeah, it would be FAR easier to grab an axle with the same ratio if 4wd (check the RPO codes) and disk brakes. Even though I think that the axle ends didn't change, it would require pulling the axles and changing out the backing plates if you were to change over your axle. As lastcoupe has said, I think you'd need to change the master cylinder to compensate for the change in volume of fluid required for the disk brake calipers. Also, the parking brake cable may need to be modified.

[lastcoupe]

I do not think that disk brakes are any more prone to failure than drum brakes because they are out in the open

Kyle I didn't mention anything about Failure, in fact they never completely fail in my experience, but for the last 6 or 7 years, G.M. has been putting very shiiiity rotors on the back of everything except the vette. It's a fact, they are trash. Ask any technician at a dealer or go take a look at their Waranty parts bin....you'll see what I mean. What I said was:

these rear disks are in the neighborhood of $200-$250 each for new rotors, and they are prone to rusting etc...because they are exposed to the elements

They are in fact more prone to rusting being exposed.

[swartlkk]

Well that's $200 for a GM rotor... A pair of quality aftermarket rotors can be purchased for less than 1 GM rotor. But I guess that's besides the point.

[lastcoupe]

That's very true, and in this case the aftermarket rotors are probably at least twice as good as the G.M. ones, and I've NEVER said that before.

[Hanr3]

i could see going to rear disc if you are running oversize tires. There are kits to do the swap, but not for this axle. Like pointed out, find a replacement axle, match gear ratio if you have a 4x4. If 2wdr, change the ring gear size in teh puter. Dealer can do it for a nominal charge.

You may also need to swap out the proportioning valve as well.

[Whittaker]

This place has a disc brake conversion kit for your rears:

KITS

(Fifth link down – '92-’98 Blazer)

You have to know your axle bolt spacing and the distance from the backing plate to the axle flange.

[Hanr3]

That link is great. Except the kit your suggesting looks like it is for fullsize Blazers.
Looks like the first link is for S10 trucks.

Although, look at the price. $240-$260 for the bracket and rotor. Toss in another $300 for the calipers and you could have bought a stock disc brake rear axle from a salvage yard complete.