I went to the junk yard today and found a 30th anniversary camaro which i believe is a 1997 v6 camaro. I looked at the brakes in the back and they were the aluminum PBR brakes made in Australia. If i take the brakes would they bolt onto my thirdgen rear with the older cast iron brakes? Or will i need to modify them? Also just to ask would it be worth buying them off that car or just buy one off a third gen?

 

Why not buy the whole rear end and save yourself some time and aggravation? Also, being a V6, it's probably a better ratio than your present 2.73's. Could be as low as 3.42's. If not, there's several threads floating around that cover this subject. IIRC, at a minimum, you have to cut the flange on the end of the axle tubes, fab/buy a mounting bracket and the correct brake lines/cables.

 

EDIT: My mistake. You currently have drums. I missed that.

You would need new backing plates & the caliper mounting brackets. If you took EVERYTHING, you might be able to bolt it to your 10-bolt, but I'm not certain on that.

 

Those brakes should bolt right up, but you need to take the backing plates. Getting the backing plates off requires removing the axles, which means pulling the cover off the diff. The same would have to be done to your rear end to remove current backing plates and install the PBR plates.

I agree that it would be easier to take the whole rear end and bolt it to your car. It will, however, be approximately 2" wider on each end.

 

Reason why i didnt want to swap that rear on is because my drum rear is posi and that one isnt. And plus there was a guy that had no clue what he was doing trying to take the brakes and unbolted one side but not the other so i dont know what he undid to the rear. If i were to take the whole rear could i take the axle with brakes and swap them to my rear? That would be worth doing. If thats possible will it still be 2 inches wider?

 

The axles would be 2" too long to fit inside your axle tubes. You could put your posi in the 4th gen rear axle, but you'd hafta to deal with the different wheel fitment. Depending on what wheels you currently have, you could be fin swapping the whole axle.

How do you have a Z28 with drum brakes? Not the original axle?

 

I mis-read "cast iron" for the older cast iron calipers. You'll have to modify your axle flanges to accept the PBR backing plates. Modification will take some cutting and drilling.

 

The donor being a V6 most probably has a 3.42 ratio diff which would be a 3-series carrier (3.23 and up), his 2.73 diff has a 2-series carrier (3.08 and lower). Without a big spacer ring, that posi carrier won't work for the 3.42.

 

True, but a 91 Z28 shouldn't have drum brakes, so the same reasoning goes for the 4th gen he's looking at....Might not be the original axle.

But you are right about a 2.73's carrier wouldn't work with 3.42 gears. So it might work, but probably not.

I'm still wondering about a 91Z with drum brakes....

 

The answers to your questions can be found in the following link (note info on modification, master cylinder, combination valve, parking brake cables, speedo gears and axle removal):

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/tran...-10-bolts.html

Many IROC's were equipped with drums.

JamesC

 

Best plan IMO would be to simply bolt the 4th gen rear under your car; use a pair of 4th gen wheels on the rear; and go here http://www.transmissioncenter.net/sp...n_______va.htm to get the right speeedo gears for whatever trans you have (700-R4?) and whatever ratio turns out to be in the newer rear. You'll have the opportunity to check the gear ratio when changing the fluid in the junk rear, as would be the FIRST thing any sensible person would ALWAYS do when installing ajunk part, which is catch up on the part's overdue maintenance.

You can also use 4th gen wheels on the front of the car if you get "wheel adapters"; the bolt pattern is the same, but the wheel offset is about 1¾" different. You need an adapter of that thickness.

 

I was always thinking the same thing, i know how the v8 camaros should of came with 4 wheel disc but maybe mine isnt the original. Now to ask if i were to swap my posi carrier out of the drum rear on my car and put it into the one at the junk yard, is it possible to get the 3 series gears in there and it will work? Also i know how our camaros never came with the ABS braking system, with this rear will i have the ABS system for the rear? And i know how you say the rear will stick out 2 inches, by that you mean my tires will be sticking out further than the rear fenders?

 

unfortunatley, Z28's could be bought with drum brakes, I have one and yes, it was factory. I would guess that is kind of rare though (hey, does that make my car worth more??)

 

Disc brakes were always an option on these cars; they were never part of the "standard equipment" package for any of them, except maybe for some years of Formulas and GTAs. But even then, in some years (early on, like before 87 or so, especially) they didn't even make enough rear discs (or posi carriers) to fill all the special orders for them, let alone add them as std eqpt; which, by modern standards, sucks. But hey, progress moves on, eh?? Same for tires... the sizes they put on these cars were HUGE in their day, but by today's standards, are a JOKE; and you can hardly get the OE sizes any more in anything decent, besides.

ABS doesn't affect the actual "brakes", except when using a rear from a car with 4-ch ABS, because then there's an individual brake line to each wheel. You gotta re-plumb the rear to get around that. Otherwise, it's a non-issue. No, putting on a rear with that doesn't mean you'll have it; you still would need the wiring, sensors for the front wheels, the computer, the "modulator" (the part that actually defeats the braking effort to make all 4 wheels have only as little brakes as the one with the LEAST traction), and the plumbing, which is an individual line to each wheel from the "modulator".

Yes the rear wheels will stick out past the fenders. It looks LAUGHABLY stupid IMO, especially with the pizza-cutter 15" wheels they put on these cars. Looks totally POSEUR, like a Honduh with a sheet-metal rear wing and drum brakes and a coffee can thing instead of a muffler and poorly-fitting body parts loosely associated with the car but mostly falling off. Don't go there. But, since 4th gen wheels whether OE or aftermarket (or C5 or C6 ones, for that matter) will then bolt right up, it's not so bad of a way to go. You just can't really use the original ones without looking ... like one of ... THEM.