I've been reading through the different posts on this, but I haven't found a definitive answer yet. My car currently has the stock iron calipers, on a 9-bolt rear. The pads are not worn down, but the e-brake doesn't hold the car on anything more than an incline of a few degrees. The car is a 5-speed, I'm currently having to park with it in gear, and put bricks behind the tires. Also, I can't find a definite answer on what years the recall applies to. Some threads say 82-86, some say 82-88. I cannot find any recall info on google for rear brakes on an 88. I know I can swap to 89+ PBR brakes from an 89+ 9-bolt rear, but I doubt I'll find a pair of those anytime soon. Can I use PBR calipers from a 10-bolt rear? What about rear discs from a 4th gen rear?

 

Yes (but you'll need the correct backing plates). 89-97 PBR's are essentially the same. Check the following link for more info on the conversion:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/faq-...iscs-89-a.html

JamesC

 

i just bought new iron calipers for my 88 bw 9bolt not too long ago. They were quite cheap from autozone i believe. 44 bucks a side. E-brake didn't work before, now it definitely does. I can hold the car when in drive at idle. You have to use the e-brake religiously to keep the rear brakes calibrated. If you dont, they will not set themselves close to the rotor as the pads wear down.

Of course, it's better to go to a better brake setup if you can afford it. 90 for total replacement was the right price for me at the time.

edit: btw. If the e-brake isn't holding the car well, your rear brakes are barely helping you to stop the car when driving. Replacing even with new irons, will be like night and day for stopping.

 

Well the e-brake will definitely get plenty of use, since the car has a manual trans. I didn't think about replacing the calipers though, I may have to do that for now, just to get it to pass inspection.

 

My guess is that current remain calipers have the recall "fix'" incorporated. The old style caliper seems reviled on TGO, but they worked well for me.

JamesC

 

Well I replaced the calipers with reman ones from Autozone, they were $60 each. The e-brake seems much better now, it holds the car in the driveway. Tomorrow I'll test it on a steeper incline to make sure. I replaced the pads, but the old ones weren't actually that bad. If nothing else, hopefully the PBR calipers are easier to work with, those iron calipers are kind of a pain. I also never noticed that both calipers are identical (no RH/LH specific ones), one faces forward, one faces backward. Are the 89+ ones like this too?

 

The 89 PBR calipers are on the same side, check picture.

 

I've seen some of the 1989-1992 J65 equipped 9-bolt axles that place the passenger side caliper in the forward facing position, so it might be true what you say. However the 10-bolt axle applications usually have both calipers in the rear of the axle. Since you have a 9-bolt, you probably have the front-facing caliper on the right side, which indeed means you can swap calipers from right to left, unlike the rest of the third and fourth-gen world.