Hey y'all. I picked up a 8.25 yesterday to clean up and drop in my 01 to replace the dana 35 that is made out of paper mache. Pretty sure the 35 has a bad pinion bearing and figured putting a 8.25 in would be a nice upgrade. I would like to do the disc brake swap for it just for ease of service, I know it doesn't really affect braking that much in terms of performance. From what I have been able to read it seems like there's not much benefit between KJ vs ZJ swap (correct me if I am mistaken). I am wondering what the parts list for doing the KJ swap would be? So far this is what I think I need to buy;

• KJ Rotors and calipers
• KJ backing plates
• RT 31040 and 31041 E-brake cables
• Bearings and Seals (just for maintenance)
• ZJ Proportioning spring
• Dana 30 studs to accommodate for rotor thickness

What else is required for the swap or are there any recommendations on what to get?

 

Backing plate studs, from the KJ
I would use the spring and valve from the ZJ. Just the guts though not the whole thing.

 

Are the backing plate studs a dealer only part or does anybody have a part number for them? I would prefer to use new ones if they don't cost some ridiculous amount. I know Jeep tends to be very proud of their studs when you try to buy them from the dealer. They tried to charge me like 15 dollars a piece for the fan studs on my 2.5L I had.

 

I have never been able to find them new, more of a junkyard find

 

Kind of figured that would be the case, but wanted to try being optimistic for once

 

So i went to the junkyard and was able to pull the calipers, backing plates, and the backing plate studs off an 05 liberty. I got new rotors, dana 30 studs, pads, and axle bearings + seals this week. I still need to order the e-brake cables from quadratec. Will the stock xj brake lines from the dana 35 bolt up to the liberty calipers? I haven't had a chance to get under the XJ and take a look at it. I still need to get a zj spring/valve, there was only 1 zj at the jy and it was pretty well picked over. On the bright side, I got the center section of an overhead console in case any of my components ever break.

 

You need to add hoses from the hard lines, the calipers are designed to move in and out and will eventually break hard lines. You may very well get the hard lines to bolt up but the in and out of the calipers will break them.