I have an opportunity to buy a drum brake rear with 3.73 gears for my car. But my car has disc brakes. How hard would it be to convert the drum brake to disc?
Can I use my disk brake system with out a problem, also can I use the same axles from the drum to disc.
Is there a sight that can show me an exploded view of the two set-ups?
If can please give me as much detail as possible.
Thanks.

 

Your axles will fit, the problem is in the axle shaft which is welded to the housing has a different backing plate. Well, if you decide to swap out the disk rear for a drum rear and want to swap the drums over to disks than you will need to create adapter brackets to mount the calipers to the backing plate of the drums. I haven't found nor heard of a company that makes the, so unless you have a welder and are good a fabrication you may want to keep the drums. If you keep the drums all you will need is either A wilwood adjustable prop valve or a drum master cylinder/prop valve. The wilwoood would probably be cheaper and for sure quicker. You would also need the drum parking brake cables. If the rear doesn't come with drums and you've decided on drums, you'll need all the hardware. It'd be best to grab this from a junkyard as there are many "non servicable" parts and GM would charge you a lot of money to get them.

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1984 WS6 Trans Am Hartop
Former L69 Car under restoration
1984 WS6 Trans Am T-top car
4-bolt main 350, headers, Holley 650, T-5 and 3.23's.
Daily driver and restoration

 

Why don't you just do a R&P in your current rear?

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-Jason M. 1991 Camaro Z28
"Its Blue."

 

That might be a smart idea... I did the 3.73/posi/disc swap, thinking I'd save some $$.

All total, including the axle, and all the parts I needed to fully rebuild the rear brake system, I wound up spending $600! I could've bought new gears, the SLP posi take-off, and had them installed for that price.

Oh well.


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-Tom P (Hot rodded 1986 Firebird 2.8l) from http://www.f-body.net/mailbag/3rd/3rd_mailbag.html message boards

 

Make sure that both rear ends are 10 bolts, 9 bolt parts are not interchangable, with the exception of the calipers. If you go to the discs you need to get the disc brake prop valve or the wilwood adjutsable one.