Suburbanman
Newbie
So, I have had my 1995 Suburban for 15 years, second owner. After driving 100 miles a day to work a few years back when gas was only 2.50 a gallon, I heard a loud BANG! Followed by a speed bump ( on the freeway). I milked it home the last few miles and parked it and inspected. I found a 1 inch hole in my differential cover! Pulling the cover I found lots of metal in the bottom, and a complete tooth missing off the ring gear that had shot right out the cover! Being broke, I did the right thing and welded the hole up, cleaned the chunks out and filled the diff with oil. I drove it like that for a couple more weeks until I shot another tooth out the diff cover. Knowing that I had used up all my luck at this point, I parked the old girl and bought a Mercedes.
But during the lockdowns the only thing to do was go to the local pick-a-parts and look for goodies to bring the old girl back to life. I have always hated the way the brakes felt in this truck. It never felt unsafe, but just not enough, especially compared to my 1980 C3500 crew cab with hydro boosted brakes. Beast!! I decided that rear disks would do the trick. I planed to do some towing in the future so it seemed smart.
But after many trips to the junk yard, I found two things; GMT400 Burbs/Tahoe's had rear drums, and NBS800 Burbs/Tahoe's ect had trailing arms and coil springs!
But I did see a few 2000's trucks that had rear disks with springs. After looking online (cant remember where now) I found a list of GM rear axels and the overall dimensions, gear ratios, ect. All within an inch or so in width, and most wider then my old 10 bolt, so I went and grabed the first good one I could find. I didn't realy look at the year of the truck, 2000ish or so, all GM's are the same, right? I just got a 6 bolt lug pattern to match my rims, I assume that is a 1500.
It went in like butter. Same yoke, break cables, almost everything was the same. The old sway bar didn't bolt up anymore, the new shock mounts are larger and were in the way. I am going to look for a heavy duty truck sway bar to install. And the ?spring brackets mounted on the axil were about 1/2 inch wider then the old ones. I could have ground them off and re-welded them on a little wider, but I was impatient. So I did the right thing and used the large pry bar.
I guess my luck is back because everything worked out fine. Looks a little off with the mounts but I will fix that soon. It is a dog leg, I didn't get everything I wanted. So I have to find a POSI somewhere and put that in. It still has a soft pedal when I break, but I didn't even bleed the breaks yet. Couple short test runs just to check for bad sounds and such.
But so yes, NBS TRUCK rear disks will fit on a OBS Chevy EASY. I will post as I finish the job with new pads and rotors in the future. Then I will do the front breaks, MC, new proportioning valve and SS break lines.
But during the lockdowns the only thing to do was go to the local pick-a-parts and look for goodies to bring the old girl back to life. I have always hated the way the brakes felt in this truck. It never felt unsafe, but just not enough, especially compared to my 1980 C3500 crew cab with hydro boosted brakes. Beast!! I decided that rear disks would do the trick. I planed to do some towing in the future so it seemed smart.
But after many trips to the junk yard, I found two things; GMT400 Burbs/Tahoe's had rear drums, and NBS800 Burbs/Tahoe's ect had trailing arms and coil springs!
But I did see a few 2000's trucks that had rear disks with springs. After looking online (cant remember where now) I found a list of GM rear axels and the overall dimensions, gear ratios, ect. All within an inch or so in width, and most wider then my old 10 bolt, so I went and grabed the first good one I could find. I didn't realy look at the year of the truck, 2000ish or so, all GM's are the same, right? I just got a 6 bolt lug pattern to match my rims, I assume that is a 1500.
It went in like butter. Same yoke, break cables, almost everything was the same. The old sway bar didn't bolt up anymore, the new shock mounts are larger and were in the way. I am going to look for a heavy duty truck sway bar to install. And the ?spring brackets mounted on the axil were about 1/2 inch wider then the old ones. I could have ground them off and re-welded them on a little wider, but I was impatient. So I did the right thing and used the large pry bar.
I guess my luck is back because everything worked out fine. Looks a little off with the mounts but I will fix that soon. It is a dog leg, I didn't get everything I wanted. So I have to find a POSI somewhere and put that in. It still has a soft pedal when I break, but I didn't even bleed the breaks yet. Couple short test runs just to check for bad sounds and such.
But so yes, NBS TRUCK rear disks will fit on a OBS Chevy EASY. I will post as I finish the job with new pads and rotors in the future. Then I will do the front breaks, MC, new proportioning valve and SS break lines.
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