I'm in need of new brakes on the rear of my 79 3/4 ton and was looking to possibly go with a disc brake swap. I have been looking around and have found the mounting bracket to use GM front calipers and rotors. It looks to be around about a $200 swap. I'm curious if anyone around here has made this swap and if so what parts did you use and how did you like the results.

I'm going to be doing it on my Dana 70 but haven't done it yet. I got the brackets from Great Lake Off Road. I've been waiting to get my little beater car back from my son before I undertake this project. I'll take pics and post a write up with parts used and all that when I do it.

I think I'm going to research this over the next couple days and make this a weekend project real soon. So far I think the bracket with the GM rotors and calipers seems to be the cheapest and best route. I just wonder how much better stopping is and overall feel.

i would say the stopping will be the same----that kit will lose the rear emergency brakes-----there are reman? cadillac brakes that are the same size as the gm fronts with an emergency brake feature-----they were only made for about 2 years and are really hard to find at the junkyard---and i have heard there is a new source for them------and the stopping power will be about the same.....

Did Cadillac brakes ever come in 8 bolt set ups? I suspect the OP won't want to loose the 8 bolt wheels on his 3/4 ton pickup.

I can't believe there are no factory 8 bolt rear wheel disc brake setups out there, the rotors and e brake stuff would be the most difficult thing to locate, brackets should be pretty generic and can bolt on or weld on to the housing. Gene

It doesn't work that way. You use K20 front rotor hats and put them on the rear wheel hub after you press the studs out and remove the drum. The hats still mount inboard so you have to press the studs back in. Good luck doing that with a hammer and punch.

It's true the calipers won't have a parking brake unless you use the Eldorado calipers. But not only are the calipers impossible to find in a junk yard the cores are expensive and most remans don't come with the levers. If you have a stick truck then you would have to use an alternative for a parking brake. Mine is an automatic and I live in Florida so I'm not worried about it.

I did the swap on a 8.75. My kit came with the drilled and slotted rotors, mounts and caddy calipers, and universal parking brake cables, too short for my application, so I had a boat shop make cables for me. The issue with the caddy calipers is you have to use the ebrake often to keep them adjusted.
The kit I got was from master power brake.

Mine is a manual so I was kinda looking toward the caddi calipers but they are pretty expensive. I saw on a ferd forum where a guy used a manual line lock as his parking brake. He said his hydraulic park brake worked just as good as the manual cable original. Honestly I'm not real worried about parking brake. It's been frozen up for 20 years or so and I haven't used it I'm not thinking I'll need it soon.

I think the manual line lock is a good alternative and is what I will do if I need to add a parking brake later. Getting cables, levers and brackets all to work with the stock pedal operated parking brake just looks like a PITA for no gain. Plus I don't like screwing the pistons back in when it's time to change pads, just another PITA.

I just found a 77 3/4 ton 4WD Cheby in a u pull it yard kind of close to me. So I'm going to go see Saturday if I can get the calipers, banjo bolts and small hardware pieces off it.

on my projects i used the front rotor off an f250 or dodge 250 on the rear----made a bracket to hold a lincoln mkVII rear caliper----it has cable e-brake---had to turn down the rotor to 1" which bothers some because that makes it worn out for a front brake-----speedway has several bracket options for the rear discs---the cheapest is the metric chevy rear....

Ok so I finally got around to installing the rear disc set up using K20 calipers and rotors. After driving a few days I love it so far. The pedal is perfect and at least unloaded the brakes are so much better its crazy. The only thing I didn't do yet is remove the residual valve from the master cylinder. I have been reading that it is usually a 10 psi valve. I know that it will possibly make the calipers drag but is 10 psi enough to worry about? Or just drive it the way it is? Also I have read other places that the proportioning valve should be changed. I'm not really wanting to mess with that at this point too bad I'm just curious if anyone of you guys got that in depth with the swap.

drum brakes need that 10 psi to keep the shoes out near the drum----disc brakes only need 2 psi to keep the pads next to the rotor----just having the master cylinder mounted on the firewall gives a column pressure near the 2 psi number---ditch the residual wherever it is....you could run a new line from the master cylinder to the rear brakes or make a short bypass line at the residual.....