Posted by: aboyandhisdog
« on: January 13, 2012, 01:18:42 PM »
Todd, I'm not a brake expert by any stretch of the imagination and am not familiar with either the 9 or 10 inch brakes which came on these beasts. �However, my 3A came with 11 inch brakes on all four wheels. �As best I can tell, they are off of a 1972 vintage CJ5. �I recently completed replacing the drums, shoes, wheel cylinders, and front brake lines and the self adjusters. �The self-adjusters are on all four wheels and have always worked great. �No pulling to either side, no temperamental adjustments to make. �I did find though that they will work best if cleaned and lubed once in a while to keep them operating smoothly. �Probably just hitting them with some brake cleaner every couple of years is enough. �One thing that I did discover was that the PO put the primary shoes on the right side to the rear which made it want to pull to the right. �The primary (shorter) shoe should always go in the forward position. �I think some guys don't notice that the shoes are different but they are.
I might advise against putting front wheel cylinders on the rear, unless the bore of the new fronts is equal to or larger than that of the rears. �If the bore of the rear wheel cylinders is larger bore, you will drag your rear wheels trying to stop your jeep. �Not good. � On mine, the PO had 15/16 inch bores all around because he didn't want to change out the front brake lines which only fit the 15/16 wc. �I swapped out those old lines with the new 15 inch rubber lines which would screw directly into the correct 1 1/8 inch front wheel cylinders. �Now everything works great and jeep stops better than ever.
As far as I know, the only way to really tell the size of the wheel cylinders is to pull the cups out of the end and then pull out the black rubber stopper thingy that is in there. �On the back side (inside) of this black rubber stopper �is the bore size. �I believe, ideally, the rears should be 3/16 inch smaller than the fronts, however when mine had 15/16 all around, the rear wheels did not drag and the stopping was fine.