What parts/labor is involved to switch from the smaller drums/shoes on a 95-02 series J-Body to the bigger Drum brakes on an 03-05? I know the wheel cylinders, shoes, drums, and I imagine hardware is different, but that else?
for the same money do a neon swap
Well, I honestly don't feel like hacking away at my rear axle to make it all fit, if it's that much more difficult of a swap, I'll just stick to OEM Replacements. My only complaint now other than stickiness when wet is that my parking brake comes way up to finally engage.
You dont hack the axle to put on neon rears.
Want hub spacers? Shoot me a PM.
It dont worth the money to do a 03-05 Drum swap. Go neon swap.
It's not worth it
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Sold my beloved J in April 2010 -
Pretty sure you're supposed to gring the rear axle. Why can no one tell me how to do it instead of telling me to go Neon swap?
shouldnt be any difference that changing out your shoes and replacing a wheel bearing. Backing plate will come off with the wheel bearing.
plus by the time you go find/purchase neon backing plates. Find a machine shop to modify them. Buy your calipers, rotors, and park shoes you have spent way more that this drum swap.
Spencer wrote:shouldnt be any difference that changing out your shoes and replacing a wheel bearing. Backing plate will come off with the wheel bearing.
not quite as easy as that. easier finding a 03-05 at a scrap yard and taking the backing plate off of it and getting everything from there. the backing plate doesn't come with new wheel bearing.
JBO Stickers are back!!!! Click Me!!
If the wheel bearing part #'s are the same, why would I need to replace them? Mine are still good. I could see the backing plates, wheel Cylinders, shoes, drums, hardware needed, but what else?
I'm not trying to discourage you at all, just give you a bit of advice concerning the e-brake problem you mentioned.
You have a lot of travel in the handle because the shoes are probably very out of adjustment. What you can do is jack up the rear end and spin the wheels. If they spin freely then you need to adjust the shoes out. You can adjust the shoes by removing the rubber thing on the back of the backing plate and using a flat head screw driver to click the star wheel to move the shoes outward. Best way I can tink of describe it is big click is brings the shoes inward, and little click adjusts the shoes outward, and thats what you want. You want to adjust the shoes so that their is a slight drag that you can hear when you spin the wheel. It should come to a stop in a few rotations.
Now as for putting on the bigger drums, I would also like to add the difference in size is fairly small. It may or may not be worth doing the swap concerning the cash involved. If you want to do the swap only because your e-brake isn't adjusted properly, then I'd just adjust the e-brake. If you want to do the swap for the "bigger" brake, then I think you may be slightly disappointed. Both set ups have the problems when wet, or when it's raining. And both have the same adjustment problem with the e-brake.
Having said that, I'm in no way discouraging you, so don't take it that way.
Good luck. And I'm sorry but I'm not sure what you have to get to get the bigger brake set up.
honestly they're not going to make a noticeable increase in performance. Now carbotech does make rear shoes for us and they do cost 173 dollars.
1994 Saturn SL2 Home Coming Edition: backup car
2002 Chevy Cavalier LS Sport Coupe: In a Junk Yard
1995 Mazda Miata R-package Class=STR
Sponsored by:
Kronos Performance
WPI Class of '12 Mechanical Engineering
WPI SAE Risk and Sustainability Management Officer
Dont forget to change your ebrake cables too as that length changed as well
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Sold my beloved J in April 2010 -
Oh the car's always had a high engagement for the brake, even when properly adjusted, figured now it must be a cable. Reason for going for the bigger Drums was an extra 2" of brake drum size, ours are ~7.xx" while the 03+ are ~9.xx", since I planned on changing the shoes, drums and adjusters anyway, why not see what else was involved. As for the sticky when wet brakes, GM did make a TSB with a different heat shield. I did a quick search on the part #, was very expensive though.
I mean the process is similar to a bearing chg sorry
Viper98912 wrote:Dont forget to change your ebrake cables too as that length changed as well
Assume you mean the back cable, as the front's are the same part #. Was unable to find rear cable at work for that year. How much longer/shorter is the rear for the new vs the old?
I don't remember exactly, but there was a difference/issue when I was putting on a set of Neon's or Daytona's on a buddy's car.
Dude, we're telling you, it's not worth it. Go stock or go Neon, this is not an upgrade. You'll have spent more money and in the end still be disappointed and everyone will still make fun of you.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Sold my beloved J in April 2010 -
Well, gotta replace the same parts for stock anyway, still toying the idea.
Here's an example of how much the drums do when you're stopping. I auto-x'ed today in street mod fwd and I managed to blue the front rotors on a run, drums were just warm to the touch when I would have burned the hell out of my hand touching the caliper on the fronts. And thats with the smaller drum. Either do disks or for looks/lock up issues or just put cheap stock stuff back there.
1994 Saturn SL2 Home Coming Edition: backup car
2002 Chevy Cavalier LS Sport Coupe: In a Junk Yard
1995 Mazda Miata R-package Class=STR
Sponsored by:
Kronos Performance
WPI Class of '12 Mechanical Engineering
WPI SAE Risk and Sustainability Management Officer
Maybe Stock's the way to go. Stopping in town now is fine, and it's not like I'm racing the car or anything. If nothing else, just keeping it in running condition since it's getting old. She's still got spunk, but IMO the body's starting to give out. 13 yrs in Indiana snowy winters and half ass body repairs will do that to any car though I suppose. It could be worse though, I don't have any rusty holes or anything, just an old car that's not worth tons of money to drop into anymore.
when my rear axle got bent on my 2000 base model. when lookining in the junk yards, i just bought an 03+ LS Sport rear axle, came with the sway bar, and a set of still good 03+ rear drums. so i used them. my 2000 style rear drums are still good, because they were replaced not too long before the accident. have the backing plate ABS plugs and if im not mistaken, the wheel bearings. if your looking for just a stock replacement now instead of the bigger drums, i could sell you the ones i have laying around. there really honestly is not much of a difference at all i can notice between the two. cant tell you if the e-brake needs less clicks with it, i highly doubt it, but not 100% sure. as mine snapped and i have yet to replace it.
but ppl that have been saying to replace your 95-02 cable with the 03+ one when u do do this swap, y is that? is the older style one shorter or longer?
Leafy wrote:Here's an example of how much the drums do when you're stopping. I auto-x'ed today in street mod fwd and I managed to blue the front rotors on a run, drums were just warm to the touch when I would have burned the hell out of my hand touching the caliper on the fronts. And thats with the smaller drum. Either do disks or for looks/lock up issues or just put cheap stock stuff back there.
20 minutes on a road course and my drums were 350*. Maybe you need to adjust your rear brakes.
doesent the parking brake have a cable adjustment inside also like most cars. I havent looked on a cavalier yet but most cars have like a 10 mm nut inside of the car if you look down inside by the base of the handle that you can turn to adjust or sometimes some cars have them underneath where the 2 rear cables y into 1 cable there will be a adjustment there. I know gm is cheap , but shurly they have another adjustment besides the drums.
The only adjustment we have is at the Drum. I went ahead and did Stock all over for the rear, replaced both rear cables. First set of Shoes from Autozone failed hard, they were too long. The 2nd set looked too short compared to my old, but they fit. Parking brake feels great, but I'm not totally sure if I've got them adjusted properly. What recommendations do you guys have?
