Hi guys, first I should introduce myself a bit. I've just bought my first Suzuki Samurai last Saturday and the little offroading that I've done so far I'm very impressed.
But I did have a problem that one of the rear brake cylinders was leaking, and the the guys at my local autospares shop was quoting me around 18 quid a cylinder ( I needed to replace both) then I wanted a set of shoes and at least one drum,these are trade prices too.
so I replied 'sod that I'll fit rear discs', and one week later I have a rear disc conversion on my sammy.
The calipers I chose were from a 1993 Saab 900, I think they are available for quite a few years either side on this year, but I do know the newer 900's use a different 2 pot caliper and although 9000's use the same caliper, the flexly pipe arrangement is different.
I choose these calipers because the pads are smaller than Suzuki front, and the piston's are quite small, these factors combined with the turned down disc should mantain the correct brake balance between the front and rear brakes.
I'll go through it in stages.
This is the none leaking side, but the shoes are getting low and I've snapped the bleed nipple in the cylinder.
so it was removed quickly with a grinder with a thin cutting disc.
this is my mount, 10mm plate with the 4 axle bolt holes drilled at an angle and a 70mm slot cut out to allow it to slip over the axle tube. The mount was designed in autocad first and printed on on card to check for fit.
which fit's on like so, the missing bit will be welded back onto the main mount when I'm happy the the conversion is a sucess.
Its hard to tell in this pictues without an orginal for comparison, but this is an orginal Suzuki front disc turned down by 15mm on the diameter because the saab pads aren't as deep as the Suzuki ones.
The orginal drum was cut out using a plasma cutter and then trued up in a lathe to use as an adaptor.
Then fit the caliper, make of the ends of the rigid brake pipes, they just need shortening with these calipers, and bled the system.
From the rear you can see why I used these calipers, they are a small neat unit and if you get the correct ones the flexy pipes are nice short and mounted on the 2 caliper body bolts and they have plently on clearance to the spring/chassis/wheel.
And since I've already fitted a 410 transfer box with hand brake on, I can use these hand brake fittings in the future for fiddle brakes.
I've been running it like this for 2 days now, the braking has improved considerably and extensive testing has shown that the rears are not locking up prematually.
Total cost, 20 quid for 2 saab calipers already fitted with new pads and a couple of days planning and fitting - well worth the effort I'd say.
