2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission rear wheel cyl upgrade?

[vaicase]

i read something a while back about a rear wheel cyl off a gm. wood be a upgrade for dodge rear brakes. what is the part number?and where do i buy them?also i was wondering i have 13x2. 5brakes. can i just use dana 80 13x3. 5 cyl off a one ton?or are the gm s better?thanks

 

[sanyata]

Vaicase ~ The GM cylinder is from an early chevy dually. It is NAPA part # 37337. It is an even larger bore than a Dodge dually cylinder. I put the Chevy part in my '95 along with the softest shoes available from Napa. The cylinders were around $9. 00 each and the shoes were around $27. 00. Pretty damn cheap for an upgrade! The pedal definitely travels farther which takes some getting used to but I acclimated within 100 miles or so. The brakes are much better with more modulation than before. The truck stops much better with the back end doing a lot more of the braking thus feeling more confident and controlled in it's braking ability.

I've got ABS and these cylinders do not match up with the ABS programming so well as you can lock up the rear wheels in a panic stop. If I did it over again, I think I would go with the smaller Dodge dually cylinders (they fit) which are still larger than stock and might work better with the ABS. I have their part # somewhere but not readily available. Just do a search on Napa's site for a Dodge 1Ton the same year as your truck.

 

[Driftwood Ram]

I too did the GM cylinders and agree with sanyata. The rear wheels will lock and also get some shuttering from the rears during normal breaking.

Try the Dodge 1 ton ones.

 

[sanyata]

I don't get any shuttering but maybe that's because i replaced the shoes and had the drums turned at the same time. At some point though, I will replace the GM's with the Dodge 1 Tonners in hopes of being a better match with the ABS.

 

[Driftwood Ram]

I don't get any shuttering but maybe that's because i replaced the shoes and had the drums turned at the same time. At some point though, I will replace the GM's with the Dodge 1 Tonners in hopes of being a better match with the ABS.

I did not do the rear brakes and agree this is probably why the shutter. They had well over 100,000 and still had plenty of shoe left even with doing manual adjustments every 5,000 when the tires were rotated.

 

[BMote]

Brake upgrade

I went a similar route, used the dodge cylinders, but no one seems to mention the fact that the drums are made for 3" brakes. I replaced the shoes with 3" , turned the drums, of course needed different hold down kit. This made substantial difference to stopping ability.

 

[BTowler]

I went a similar route, used the dodge cylinders, but no one seems to mention the fact that the drums are made for 3" brakes. I replaced the shoes with 3" , turned the drums, of course needed different hold down kit. This made substantial difference to stopping ability.

Do you have part numbers? Is yours srw or drw?

 

[Nate]

I have the Chevy duallie wheel cylinders on my truck and they didn't make any difference in braking. None at all.



I have good shoes at well. They were about $100 for both sides.



My buddy ran a 2000 Ram 2500, same as mine pretty much and I had him drive it and he said it stopped the same as his truck.





Buy wheel cylinders for a 96 Chev 3500 duallie and it will be the correct ones. 1 3/16" bore.

 

[Mhannink]

i did the chevy cylinders. i dont notice anymore travel then before and this is the fourth truck i have done. my truck in sig i have put art frozen rotors and carbon metalic pads on the front. and new professional grade drums and shoes on the rear. i have to say this truck stops just as good if not a taste better then the 3rd gens. put the chevy ones in and dont look back you'll love the way the truck stops

 

[vaicase]

i dont know how that part number from napa will work,its metric threads. i went with the 1 ton dodge 1 1/16 verses 15/16. thanks

 

[sanyata]

I just grabbed my recept from Napa just to make sure I didn't get the number wrong. It is the right number, it's for the Chevy dually and it did bolt right up with the same bolts. I don't know how you came up with it being metric cause it's not.

I did a bunch of searching before I did this upgrade and it's fair to say people report different results in terms of pedal travel but most all report much improvement in stopping power.

I changed mine after driving it only 700 miles to get it home from Oregon after buying it. Just that drive alone and I was really worried how sub-standard they were compared to the '02 that I had owned beforehand. To be fair, the shoes were really glazed over from overheating and I'm sure the new shoes contributed their share in the overall improvement.

 

[sanyata]

vaicase ~ I got curious and looked at the Napa site and totally see where you got the metric info, sorry to say you were wrong when you were not! I compared the info to the cylinder for the Dodge and it says the Dodge line thread is 3/8 x 24 and the Chevy is M10x1. Now that's just weird. I don't know enough to know if those two threads are basically the same but I do know it bolted right up.

Maybe some engineering type can "edumacate" us on the threading.

 

[McCRam]

I took the chevy cylinders out of mine and put the dodge dually cylinders in. My rear tires locked up too easy and I wrecked a couple of good tires. However. When I was pulling or hauling they were awesome. We have a 98. 5 that we are going to put a 1500lbs bale handler on. I will definatly put the chevy cylinders on that.

 

[PRattenbury]

I went through my 94's brakes completely (and I mean lines, drums, shoes, rotors, calipers, hoses, master, hardware, everything) using a high-end, well-thought-of vendor's kit. The brakes still were awful. So I questioned myself, and had 2 different shops check my work to make sure they were bled, adjusted, and the like. Everything checked fine. But in all honesty, the brakes in that truck are totally inadequate for a 7800 pound behemoth. I wouldn't even consider towing. Next step for me when I get a chance is to go with disc brakes in the rear.

 

[Matt42]

I went a similar route, used the dodge cylinders, but no one seems to mention the fact that the drums are made for 3" brakes. I replaced the shoes with 3" , turned the drums, of course needed different hold down kit. This made substantial difference to stopping ability.

Do you have a part number for the shoes? Alternately, do I just ask for the shoes to fit a 1 ton?

I changed the rear cylinders to the 3/4 ton version several years ago, and it was a worthy fix.

 

[RON'S RAM]

I too installed the chevy wheel cylinders. If I were to do it again, I would go with the Dodge 1 ton cylinders as I drive empty most of the time and the rear brakes lock up very easy. It is definately a worthwhile upgrade though.

Good luck.

 

[Nate]

I have to wonder if there is something wrong with my braking system?

I have the proportioning valve on the rear zip tied so it's "full flow" and the Chev wheel cylinders.

If I stand on the pedal, I can get the rear tires to lock up, but it takes panic stop type braking.

The truck stops "ok", but I would love the brakes to be more like the Duramax trucks!
We have an 05 at work, and a few times I have stepped on the pedal like I would in my truck and just about needed to pick my teeth out of the steering wheel


I'm going to get a pressure guage one of these days and see what kind of pressure I'm pushing to the back brakes. I have to wonder if perhaps the master cylinder is weak.

 

[sanyata]

I'm pretty sure that the 1Ton Dually Dodge master cylinder is bigger that the stock 3/4 ton. The Napa parts numbers indicate this anyway. If you have a questionable master cylinder I'd look in to that.

I think using all the parts off the Dodge 1Ton, including the 3" shoes that BMote suggests, would be the cat's meow.

 

[jelag]

Would someone tell me why, when some engineers have been paid a lot of money to design a system that works well..... you'd want to change it... .



There are some federal standards for stopping at 60 mph... . at those speeds in a panic stop the front brakes do about 70% of the work and the rear brakes do about 30%, this is because of the weight transfer (energy) that moves forward during a panic braking application... .



As all of you have found, changing the bore of the rear shoes locks them up, thus allowing the rear wheels to skid during a panic stop... . skidding tires are tires that have lost traction and it will take this truck a lot longer to stop at 60 mph than a stock one.....



Would one of you please give me a solid reason why you've done this and maybe risked your life and those who you love in the process..... Let alone the risk of someone finding out you've modified the brakes and maybe thrown your insurance package out the window... ...

 

[BTowler]

Because the so-called engineers did not do their job properly and the rear brakes are sub-par, in some cases not even providing any braking at all!