im may interested if this became availible

I'm watching this thread carefully, too; the novelty of manually adjusting the rear drums on my 80 wore off about 17 years ago.

And anything that moves away from needing the stoopid-$$$$ left rear SA e-brake cable would be welcome, too.

+1 for the S2 drum to disk

Any news here? I sure would love to do this when I do my suspension!

I'm a living proof that Billy's disc brake conversion kit will work well. I have upgraded my RX-3s and other old school projects to rear disc brake.

One thing I would like to add:
Many people said that a Non-GSL master cylinder needs to be modded (for rear brake) but that is a total bullshit. In my RX-3, I have tried both modded and non-modded (non-GSL master cylinder) with no issues.

so i take it the disc conversion kit was never made, i have an 85 GS and would def buy a conversion kit esp being as im searching all over for a gsl or gsl-se rear that someone is willing to part with

79-83 drum to disk kit is now in our catalog. The 84-85 drum to disk is not ready yet.

-billy

what catalog is this that u speak of? im another one interested in this

+1

Alright Billy. I like what I see. Reasonable price for a couple of sturdy brackets too.

How do we solve the brake line issue? I see your working on it.
Seems like you could use the existing softline for the drums to a 3 way block or
you could split it further up the chassis and have two soft lines to each
caliper. I think being able to reuse the existing drum soft line would be most cost
effective. I see you have a 3 way block already but would that work with the
existing fine thread drum soft line to the axle? Anyway, I'm saving some bucks for
this conversion.

Thanks.

Sorry for the late response. I just noticed the thread update.

Currently the kit will mount the calipers only. Brake lines and emergency cable would be up to the customer. We have sourced a 3 way block, as you mentioned, that will help with the conversion. The easiest way we see is to use hard-lines from a GSL rear axle. We do see where this will be a bit harder to obtain without purchasing the entire housing.

Hard-lines can be made from straight sections picked up at a local auto parts store as well. You will need to bend them to fit the housing. We have looked at commercial options for bending the lines but the cost is to far out there for the number of units we see selling. I do not feel comfortable bending lines in house and having them uniform.

So that is where we currently sit with the project.


-billy

Billy I bend 1/8 to 1 inch tubeing for work, every thing I do is +/- .02 of a inch . If u need advice or tips I can help out. Besides flareing the tubeing end i can bend a side in 10 mins with a hand bender. Could u just use stainless wraped lines.

Billy, bending and flaring lines is a piece of cake as far as I'm concerned.

Can I use my existing SA brake hose down to the axle into the 3 way?

Thanks, I have done plenty of brake line tube bending but would not call myself an expert. I know we will not do them in house due to the quality standards and cross compatibility we adhere to.


The 3 way block is all fine thread so the body to rear end line from an SA will not work. I will check later today on which hard lines will need to be redone. IIRC, the line that goes from the 3 way block to the passenger side could be re-used. Only the driver side would need to be re-made since it normally comes from the passenger side all the way over to the driver side.


-billy

Billy this mite sound dumb but could this be done. Could you just use a braided flex line with a adapter to the 3 way block . And two braided flex lines from the 3 way block to the breaks? Is there any reason you can't do this.

No dumb at all. Could certainly be done the SS braided lines. It would cost a bit more than hard-lines.

-billy

So Billy what would I do about rotors since I have 4x110 bolt patterns. You should make kits with flex lines I'll buy one

This kit mounts the GSL calipers to the drum rear end so the bolt pattern is the same, 4 x 110MM.

-billy

Ok heres a rough shot at what it might cost to do this on my SA. I used
rockauto for my price extimates.

2 unloaded calipers with brackets $77.00 * 2 = $154.00
1 set of rear brake pads.................................$20.00
1 left ebrake cable.........................................$14. 00
1 right ebrake cable.......................................$18.00
2 Respeed brackets.......................................$80 .00
1 Respeed 3 way block...................................$19.00
adapter for SA line to block.............................$10.00 (guess)
hardlines, fluids, fudge factor..........................$25.00
========================================
total............................................. .................$340.00

Not bad to get brand new disc brakes hardware. Of course you could save
$100.00 if you got used GSL calipers and rebuilt them. No more adjusting
stoopid drum brakes :)

Billy I just have to talk the wifey into understanding why I "have" to do this
or it won't be safe.

Won't you be wanting some rotors as well? :scratch:

look dudes. you guys are over estimating these parts. just go to a junkyard and grab the e-brake cables and the "wye" off a GSL model, rear calipers/brackets and fabricate/flares your own hard lines. it nice to have new parts but so you guys need to grow some balls and take chances with used parts.

Good catch that would bring it up to an even 400 bucks for a brand new disc conversion.

Wacky theres a place for used parts, your car :)

Seriously maybe the cables and brackets would be doable but normally I use new parts for my brakes.

Can't... somebody in SoCal seems to be hoarding them all... :naughty:

lol. dont hate the parts collector