Stainless Steel rear disk brake conversion problem

[Greg Hansen]

I Have a 97 C1500 with the SSBS rear disk brake conversion which I have had for quite a few years now but I’m starting to have some issues with them. The rear calippers have their stamp on them but are apparently from a 92 or so Ford Thunderbird. So I bought 2 new Callipers but there is something definitely wrong. They emergency brake cables don’t fit properly and I have weird noises coming from them, like a big gravel trucks groaning brakes.
Now on top of that I have a squeak, squeak, squeak coming from the left side. I’ve had them apart about four times trying to get rid of this noise with no luck. Any suggestions?

 

[fastfreddys454ss]

I still haven’t got my emergency brake right. External emergency brakes suck. I bought some thunder bird emergency brake cables that I am going to adapt to my original cable. Not sure how well those will work yet. On youtube Ericthecarguy has a couple videos on how to put the emergency brake cable on for ssbc rear disc conversion. on

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and https://youtu.be/kKS6gIVZcek. Very helpful. As far as the noise is the brakes. It been a long time since I installed mine. I don’t remember if thunderbird brakes use shims that go behind the pads. I think I used a combination of the sims and brake grease to quiet them down. Also did you get new replacement ceramic pads. Sometime those throw out a grinding sound. I was also told by ssbc myself that it’s 87 to 91 thunderbird, they use for the conversion. I don’t know enough about thunderbird to tell you if 92 has a little different caliper or not. Hope this helps. Just a couple ideas of what to look for.

 

[DamHoodlum]

www.littleshopmfg.com

My **** works perfect

 

[Greg Hansen]

www.littleshopmfg.com

My **** works perfect

 

[Greg Hansen]

What rear callipers does yours have? Did you get the ones with the emergency brake?

 

[DamHoodlum]

Yes the ones with emergency brakes

 

[fastfreddys454ss]

Looks like little shop Manufacturing. Uses a 76 to 80s Cadillac rear Caliper. The emergency brake system looks a little better. For an external ebrake system. I didn’t like using a ford rear brake system on my truck that I got from SSBC. Where were they when I did my conversion 5 years ago. To late now. Unless I sell my ssbc kit. If I do decide to sell it then think I would get the pro performance 14” rear disc conversion. First two pics are ssbc kit and the second 2 are Little Shop Manufacturing. Last pic is the pro performance relelator kit

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[Greg Hansen]

Thanks you guys for your help. I have now come across another company that is making a caliper mount for 10 and 12 bolt rear ends to utilize the K1500 front calipers. There is no emergency brake of course but just the fact that you can use the same calipers front and back and of course they both use the same pads so yet another bonus. They suggest using 1995 Impala SS front rotors that just have to have the bolt holes drilled out from 12mm to 14mm holes. The company is “www.cunninghammachine.com/speed-shop/“. The caliper brackets are $150 and it comes with a parts list for the other parts needed.
Now the only problem is that these don’t have an emergency brake but otherwise a great option, quite similar to the “Little Shop” no emergency brake option and about the same price. I would love to change over to the little shop option with the emergency brake option but I have a hard time spending close to $1000 when all I need is brackets to hold the calipers and the calipers themselves. My rotors are slotted and still in great shape .
Just one more note. I haven’t totally fixed the problems yet but I have bought a full new set of pads front and rear, I AMDICA going to fix the left rear calliper by using parts from the new calliper to fix the original which will also cure the emergency brake issue and the sticky calliper. I have contacted SSBC company now that I have found that they are still open but after contacting their tech support I must say that they were as useless as they always have been. I asked for a replacement calliper and they new returned my email. Needless to say I am not impressed.
I’ll let you all know how I make out after my repair job.
Thanks again for all your help.

 

[90lsx]

@Greg Hansen glad you found a link for the brackets from Cunningham those are the ones I am running on my 95 ext cab.

Although I am not running calipers with brake. I would be assuming that you could run the older model Cadillac calipers to retain that feature. I am not 100% on fitment so please do not quote me on that.

Edit: If you look at their website they also have the bracket for the parking break version. I'd be assuming its the same bracket just different calipers needed.

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[timbroslice]

I just recently purchased the brackets from Cunningham Machine. The rear brake calipers required to retain e-brake are from the rear of a 1982 Cadillac Eldorado 5.7 car. I am still waiting for my Rock Auto order to show up and then I will be doing this swap along with ABS delete, Russell stainless lines at all corners, and 2002 Tahoe Master Cylinder swap on my 96 RCSB.