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Dana 60 Rear Disc Brakes

Submitted By: Sam Simpson Date: October 15, 2008, 11:30:27 AM Views: 14030

My stock drum brakes on the dana 60 sucked, and they were needing to be redone. So instead of fixing the stock crappy system, I figured I would go ahead and do rear disc brakes. All the brake components cost me about 120 bucks at Autozone (not including the bracket).

Note: If you want an emergency brake, use calipers for a 77-78 Cadillac El Dorado. This is for my trail rig and I don't need an emergency brake so I used regular calipers.

Here are the parts I used for the setup:

85 Chevy 3/4 ton 4x4 front rotors
85 Chevy 3/4 ton 4x4 front calipers
85 Chevy 3/4 ton 4x4 front brake pads
85 Chevy 3/4 ton 4x4 front caliper bolts
85 Dodge 1 ton front brake hoses (same as 1/2 and 3/4 ton)
Misc banjo bolt pack (they didn't have any dodge banjo bolts, so I bought the misc pack that contains an assortment)
Dana 60 rear disc brake brackets

First thing to do is pull the 8 bolts off that hold the axle shaft to the hub.

Once they are unbolted, pull the axle out slightly and let gear lube leak down into an oil pan, if there is any that will leak out.

Go ahead and pull the axle out.

Once you get the axle out you will have to pull the big nut off that holds the hub on (there may be a washer with tabs that you will have to bend back to get the nut off, mine didn't have a washer, it was a nyloc nut).

You will need a special socket to remove the nut.

Once you get the nut off you can pull the drum off. It might be a good idea to set the bearings safely aside, or even replace them and the seals. I didn't replace anything on mine since I will be totally rebuilding the axles later.

I bought my rear disc brake brackets off of a guy on Ebay, but I probably would of been better off building them myself. I had to heavily grind on the bracket to make it work.

On the left in the above picture is what I had to modify, on the right is the bracket the way it comes. With it having a full circle for mounting, it would have to mount on the outside of the brake drum flange to work. However, with the rotors I had this put it too close to the rotor and the caliper wouldn't fit.

So I cut a notch out to be able to fit it over the axle. With mounting it on the inside of the flange, it now wouldn't sit flush since the welds on the flange holding it to the axle tube are raised. So I had to grind the inside mounting area on the calipers.

More grinding was needed where the caliper mounts to the bracket (not in the picture, I had to pull everything back off and grind the bracket so the caliper could fit and move freely and didn't get a pic of that).

Now, the seller of these brackets claims using older calipers and rotors no grinding would be needed and you could mount the bracket on the outside of the flange, but looking at the older stuff just showed me it was the same stuff as what I got.

Once all that grinding was done, you can mount the bracket to the inside of the drum flange.

In the above pic the bracket is mounted at the wrong angle, it actually needs to point up some more. I later corrected this but did not get a pic of it.

You will have to seperate the drum from the hub, which requires knocking the studs out. I just put the lug nuts back on and knocked them out with a hammer.

Once they are knocked out you can seperate the hub from the drum.

Flip the hub over and set the disc (upside down) down on top of it.

Now knock your studs into the disc and hub with a punch and hammer. You can also upgrade to either longer or thicker studs if you like, I went ahead and used the stock studs.

Once you are done mating the disc and hub, put the bearings back in and stick it back on the spindle.

Go ahead and tighten down the large nut and bolt the axle shaft back in.

Now you can mount the caliper onto the bracket with pads installed and the caliper bolts. Then hook up your brake hoses to the factory hard brake line and to the calipers, bleed them and you are done!

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Comments
LiftedSilver Newbie Offline Gender: Posts: 13	March 26, 2015, 08:52:13 AM Thanks for posting this, the job is really straight forward. My question is do you know of a "Beefier" option than the 77-78 Cadillac El Dorado calipers with a e-brake?
LonesomeD200 Full Member Offline Gender: Posts: 1126 By whatever means necessary…	October 22, 2011, 08:20:10 PM Thanks for posting this. I have plans do to the same thing. I have been gathering the oarts for a little while now.

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