How would I go about changing the D35 Drum breaks to disk breaks without buying a 700$ conversion kit? Is there anything that will bolt right up? Anything close? Any rear ends that will swap without modification with Disk breaks. Do you notice any BIG difference? Just curious.

 

Get all the parts from a ZJ. It's a direct bolt on. Backing plates and calipers. I'd suggest new rotors and parking brake shoes. You'll also need different parking brake cables by I don't know which ones. I've got the ZJ kit on my C8.25 but I had to hone the backing plates a little. Someone should be able to suggest parking brake cables.

 

Huge difference. Since you have a D35 already just steal all the parts from a ZJ, most of them have D35s.

There are a number of writeups on the subject, at least for C8.25s, but the project is the same just minus enlarging the hole on the backing plates.

 

Here's how:

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f51/re...-8-25-a-57807/



Brakes:

I've seen drum and disc brakes, drums and discs break, but never drum or disc breaks.

 

Could just a backyard mechanic do it? Should I pay a guy with more experence do it? I'm only 16 and I would rather not play with the differential stuff. (C-clips) ETC.

 

I bought ZJ parts from BigDavid in the Axle section below.

Link:

https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f71/di...on-kit-159484/

Not terribly difficult to do and BigDavid provides the base parts and then you add calipers, rotors and pads.

You can do it for around $300 and a few hours of work.

 

+1 on Big David's kit. Except mine came with calipers. I haven't done the prop valve gut swap yet, but it's on my list. They still work great. The trickiest part for me was getting the E-brake set correctly.

 

Yes he sends the calipers, but you have to inspect them to see if they are something you want to use based on condition. Same goes for the soft brake lines.

 

My calipers were in excellent shape, but I did have to get a new soft line for the one because I couldn't remove the snipped hard line fitting.

 

Yes (what do you think we are? lol), no, and the c-clips are stupidly easy. You can't screw that up. It's not really "diff work".

 

The challenge you might run into with the diff is when you remove the crosspin and your spider gears might want to go for a swim. Happened to me, but with a little time and trial and error, I got them back in the right spot with little trouble. If you got the tools, go for it.

 

This is true. A good idea would be after removing the cross pin, secure the spider gears with zip ties or twist ties or wire or twine or cat gut or something

 

ive been wanting to do it to my 8.25 for a while but just replaced my drum brakes. ill just wait until they wear out to do it

 

I could do it at 16. They didn't even have disc brakes back then.

 

I didn't know chariots had drum brakes...