Little Shop Disc Break Conversion

[termite]

I never understood the “difficult to maintain” either. As pointed out, comparing a new cool disc setup to your old drum setup isn’t a valid comparison.

Difficult to hook the springs up if unfamiliar with them perhaps. Or difficult to occasionally get the drum off perhaps? I personally prefer to keep my rear drums and once a year open them up for inspection and adjusting. (Low mileage driver here)

Drove my old 99 k1500 for ten years and over 120k miles with nothing more on the rear drums than clean/adjust every other oil change.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

A well designed caliper, all you have to do to change pads is knock out 2 pins and push the pistons back. When I change shoes, a lot of cussin' and fussin' is involved. You're never going to convince me that drums are better.

 

[Supercharged111]

A well designed caliper, all you have to do to change pads is knock out 2 pins and push the pistons back. When I change shoes, a lot of cussin' and fussin' is involved. You're never going to convince me that drums are better.

That's not the argument. It's that a well maintained factory drum setup won't be outperformed by the little shop kit, and that the drums are far better engineered than the aftermarket kit.

 

[1998_K1500_Sub]

?? I've done front pads 5X and rotors 3X on my 1500. Still rocking whatever shoes are inside the junkyard diff

^^^ x2

I can count on two hands (or maybe three) the number of drum brake jobs I've done in my lifetime, while I've done many, many disc brakes.

I agree with @0xDEADBEEF that drums aren't as easy, but they're very infrequent in my experience.

Having a proper tool to work with the springs helps. I've had a drum brake tool since the 70s (like pictured) that's worth its weight.

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and this comes in handy

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[Caman96]

Difficult to hook the springs up if unfamiliar with them perhaps. Or difficult to occasionally get the drum off perhaps? I personally prefer to keep my rear drums and once a year open them up for inspection and adjusting. (Low mileage driver here)

Drove my old 99 k1500 for ten years and over 120k miles with nothing more on the rear drums than clean/adjust every other oil change.

If one must throw the other side a bone…I guess.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

That's not the argument. It's that a well maintained factory drum setup won't be outperformed by the little shop kit, and that the drums are far better engineered than the aftermarket kit.

I really don't care one way or the other. I had the LSM kit and it worked.

I didn't do any comparison testing because everything inside the drum was wasted because of an exploded wheel cylinder and sitting in a field for years, wouldn't have been fair.

Maybe it's my luck, but I've owned 4 of these trucks now, and none of them blew me away with stopping power, so I think the bar is pretty low there.

 

[Supercharged111]

I really don't care one way or the other. I had the LSM kit and it worked.

I didn't do any comparison testing because everything inside the drum was wasted because of an exploded wheel cylinder and sitting in a field for years, wouldn't have been fair.

Maybe it's my luck, but I've owned 4 of these trucks now, and none of them blew me away with stopping power, so I think the bar is pretty low there.

The only ones that don't suck are hydroboosted.

 

[Schurkey]

You young bucks!

I remember when disc brakes were just getting popular. You know--AFTER they weren't optional, (with almost no-one paying extra for them) and becoming standard at the front of just about everything.

Mechanics bitched and whined about how complex disc brakes were. How they weren't as simple and reliable as good ol' easy-to-work-on drums.

?? I've done front pads 5X and rotors 3X on my 1500. Still rocking whatever shoes are inside the junkyard diff I installed back in 2012. Discs ARE easier to service, absolutely, but I can't think of a brake pad that's outlasted what's in the back of my 1500.

Have we discussed this before? If your rear brakes last that long...there's something wrong. They're lasting that long because they're not being used. Plugged rear hose, faulty combination valve...something like that. And when the rear brakes don't work, the front brakes wear prematurely as they're working extra-hard to stop the truck with no help from the rears.

As to why the OP loves his new setup? New stuff is better than old, out of adjustment leading/trailing garbage. But I'm in violent agreement with those who've pointed out the glaring flaws in this kit.

Yes. It's easy to fall in love with a new design, when the old stuff wasn't working to it's potential due to age and wear.
And--true enough--the 254mm leading/trailing shoe brakes are a fookin' disaster even if properly-designed (Duo-Servo) and properly-sized drums in general aren't a real problem.

A well designed caliper, all you have to do to change pads is knock out 2 pins and push the pistons back. When I change shoes, a lot of cussin' and fussin' is involved. You're never going to convince me that drums are better.

When racing, knocking out two pins and replacing pads is a wonderful design. Faster pit-stops is more better, and the whole system can be examined in detail--maybe scrapped--before the next race.

This DOES NOT WORK on street-driven cars, because the calipers and rotors are likely to also need attention that they won't get if a person is focused on slapping pads in and throwing the tire back on.

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"Crust" on the square-cut caliper seal, partially scraped-off.

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[Scooterwrench]

Meh. Brakes are for losers.

Yeah,they just slow you down anyway.

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

When racing, knocking out two pins and replacing pads is a wonderful design. Faster pit-stops is more better, and the whole system can be examined in detail--maybe scrapped--before the next race.

This DOES NOT WORK on street-driven cars, because the calipers and rotors are likely to also need attention that they won't get if a person is focused on slapping pads in and throwing the tire back on.

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"Crust" on the square-cut caliper seal, partially scraped-off.

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I don't know if that's a fair comparison, since every caliper I've seen with knockout pins is at least a 4 piston design with opposed pistons. Plenty of street cars have this design. My 2001 Lexus LX has it.

Besides, it's only 2 bolts if you want to take the caliper off.