3:29 am
May 4, 2004
Offline
I spent today working on brakes and finally have a combination I'm really satisfied with.
For those of you who don't know, I've got a 2000 TJ, 4.10 gears, auto transmission, factory 2.72 gears in the t-case & 35" tires. My rear axle was built with '98 Ford Explorer disk brakes. My front brakes are Vanco's big brake kit which fits '98 Ford Explorer dual piston disks to the D30/Rubi D44 axle.
I've tried just about every combination of brake boosters and master cylinders over the last several years including the following, with my results:
* Stock booster & stock master (1" bore) - too soft pedal and felt like I didn't have enough brake
* Stock booster & Dodge 3500 truck master (1 1/4" bore) - very hard pedal, marginal improvement, if any, in braking
* Vanco Hydroboost & Corvette master (1 1/8" bore) - good brakes but brake pedal was fairly hard & I didn't like the power steering and brakes tied together. I also had problems with the Corvette master cylinders going bad after about a year's use. I don't think they held up well to the pressures from the hydroboost.
* Vanco Hydroboost & Chevy C30 master (1 1/4" bore) - very hard pedal, fairly good braking but it took a firm push of the brake pedal
* Off Again Navajo booster & master (1" bore, I think) - felt pretty much the same as stock booster & master, not too good of braking
* Dave's Customs Unlimited booster & master ( 1 1/8" bore) - much better pedal feel than all previous combinations. I'd rate this as the second best combination I tried. But I didn't have very good cold braking with the brake pads I am using.
* And the winner is - the factory TJ booster with a '98 Dodge Durango master cylinder (1 1/16" bore) - pedal feel is great, braking seems great. I'll know more about the cold braking in the morning but I expect it to be decent and improve as the brakes warm up.
4:01 am
Glad you got it figured out. What part of the brakes do you think is doing the warming up with the Dave's system? I ask because since I put on a new power steering pump it is nearly impossible to turn until the truck is good and warm. I can't imagine why the fluid would need to warm up.
4:09 am
May 4, 2004
Offline The "warming up" has nothing to do with fluid temps. It's the brake pads & rotors that warm up and work better. The friction material on some brake pads work better when they're warmer versus others that work better colder. Some work great when cold but the brakes fade when the brake temps increase. Others don't work so well cold but work great once they're warmed up. The pads I've got now seem to work better warmer, but are not considered "track pads" which only work well at very high temps.
Does your truck turn worse than before you changed the pump? Maybe you got a defective pump. Does it make noise? Did you "bleed" the power steering after installing the new pump?
3:57 pm
"FAM" wrote: The "warming up" has nothing to do with fluid temps. It's the brake pads & rotors that warm up and work better. The friction material on some brake pads work better when they're warmer versus others that work better colder. Some work great when cold but the brakes fade when the brake temps increase. Others don't work so well cold but work great once they're warmed up. The pads I've got now seem to work better warmer, but are not considered "track pads" which only work well at very high temps.
Interesting. I didn't realize it was such a big deal, but now that you mention it, I've heard of "brake fade".
"FAM" wrote: Does your truck turn worse than before you changed the pump? Maybe you got a defective pump. Does it make noise? Did you "bleed" the power steering after installing the new pump?
When it's warm, it turns great. The old pump was good, the new one is great. I replaced the old one because it started leaking and it was cheaper than a rebuild but it still felt fine. The one in there now is the second pump I put in. The first one was defective and wouldn't turn at all. Warm or cold. I ran Fordyce with it and couldn't feel my arms at the end. It was the day that NorCal ran it for the first time and we told him to follow my lines. When the pump died half way through I told him to do everything he could to avoid going where I went. 
I bled this one like crazy over and over and over. On jack stands, the whole bit. It's just the weirdest thing. Anyway, it's a definite a thread hijack...congratulations on the brakes - you must have a brake graveyard in your garage. 8)
4:14 pm
January 7, 2003
Offline "Bender" wrote:
When it's warm, it turns great. The old pump was good, the new one is great. I replaced the old one because it started leaking and it was cheaper than a rebuild but it still felt fine.
My power steering pump on the 4runner was leaking. You can rebuild it yourself for right around $30. If you still have your old pump you can buy the rebuild kit from Toyota and give it a shot. Its not hard to do and you can find the step by step instructions on the web.
4:47 pm
"Howdy" wrote: [quote="Bender"]
When it's warm, it turns great. The old pump was good, the new one is great. I replaced the old one because it started leaking and it was cheaper than a rebuild but it still felt fine.
My power steering pump on the 4runner was leaking. You can rebuild it yourself for right around $30. If you still have your old pump you can buy the rebuild kit from Toyota and give it a shot. Its not hard to do and you can find the step by step instructions on the web.
I'm really happy with this pump, it just takes a couple of minutes to warm up and I can't figure out why. I looked at rebuilding the old one and decided against it for some reason. Since I don't have a garage stuff like that either happens on my deck or in the shed. Neither of which is much fun. 😀
12:11 am
"FAM" wrote: I spent today working on brakes and finally have a combination I'm really satisfied with.
For those of you who don't know, I've got a 2000 TJ, 4.10 gears, auto transmission, factory 2.72 gears in the t-case & 35" tires.
* And the winner is - the factory TJ booster with a '98 Dodge Durango master cylinder (1 1/16" bore) - pedal feel is great, braking seems great. I'll know more about the cold braking in the morning but I expect it to be decent and improve as the brakes warm up.
Interesting, the bore size increased by 1/16" so bore area increased 13%, tire diameter went from ~29 to 35 and rotor diameter went from 11 to 11.25 and of course the calipers changed to dual piston explorer.
I'm curious about all this because it seems if you increased the rotor diameter by the same ratio as the tire diameter using bigger rims, the brakes might remain unchanged.
4:10 am
May 4, 2004
Offline "RockinCrawler" wrote: I'm curious about all this because it seems if you increased the rotor diameter by the same ratio as the tire diameter using bigger rims, the brakes might remain unchanged.
That would seem to make sense.
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