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want o beef up brakes on 97 4WD Ranger


Firexit1A

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I have a 1997 Ford Ranger 4wd. great looking and running truck. I haul motorcycles on a trailer. While the brakes are ok, I am looking for better pucker power! Any help with beefing up the brake is appreciated. The rear brakes are drum. Does anyone make a kit to convert to disc?
 


stmitch

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Converting to Mustang GT or Cobra rear disc brakes is pretty well covered here and other Ranger sites on the internet. There have been multiple write-ups done over the years. Doing a search should bring them up. It's all common Ford parts and can be done with new parts from Ford for under $500. Junkyard parts for much less.

There have been front upgrades over the years, but they're custom parts done in small batches, so the odds of finding the stuff is pretty slim. I don't know of any that would work on a 4WD truck anyway. If you can't or don't want to make your own custom big brake setup, your best bet is to run good pads and fluid and keep them as cool as you can with brake cooling ducts. Some stainless brake lines might help with pedal feel too.
 
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don4331

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Mustang brakes give you the 'bling' of discs, but they reduce your actual brake performance.

Explorer axle with its discs gets you upgraded axle and upgrade brakes - which happen to be discs.*

Normal 1st question would be: Do you have 9" or 10" rear drums? If you have 9's, the 10s are a significant upgrade*

*Both Explorer discs and larger drums should have a proportioning valve added to work right...

Does the trailer have brakes? Adding surge coupler/hydraulic brakes to the motorcycle trailer might be easier/safer solution.
 

stmitch

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Don, I'm curious to know why you think that Explorer discs would be an upgrade, but Mustang discs would not?
 

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Normal 1st question would be: Do you have 9" or 10" rear drums? If you have 9's, the 10s are a significant upgrade*
Not really. He said it's a 4x4. All the 4x4s from 1990 on got the 8.8, and all the 8.8s got 10" brakes.

I do agree that for the load in question trailer brakes is probably the best solution.
 

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First question would be, what's the current state of the braking system? As a 97, it is hitting the 20 year old mark. I'm going to assume that it already has good brake shoes. First step should be to access the condition of the braking system. Check the hoses, if they've never been replaced they are 20 years old, they are due for it. Has the fluid ever been changed, could probably use fresh fluid and a system bleed. Did that last year on my 99 4x4 and it made a big difference. This should still be considered even if you're determined to do an upgrade.

If good shape factory brakes aren't enough for stopping the truck and trailer, is look to trailer brakes next. Having trailer brakes is a win/win even if you do upgrade the brakes later.

If you've got to have disk brake in rear, but must keep stock axle, Mustang brake are not a bad choice. Not the best option around, but better than the stock drums IMO. Keep in mind that they were designed to stop a car another the same weight as a stock 2wd SWB Ranger, not a 4wd truck pulling a load. I can see them stopping better than the stock drums, but can also see them getting hot and fading quicker. Probably better stopping on level ground, but wouldn't want to chance to worry a load in hilly area. Mustang disks with trailer brakes, I don't think you have a problem anywhere.

If you're willing to do an axle swap, an Explorer 8.8 with disk brakes would be the way to go. Good size and vented disk rotor. Designed to stop a truck as heavy or heavier than a 4wd Ranger while pulling a load. Ventilation means they will run cooler and be less susceptible to face during hard braking. They'd still benefit from trailer brakes. It is my understanding that a drum style parking brake, like the explorer disks have, is better at holding a load than a disk style parking brake like the Mustangs. Chocks work better than both though.




I don't need a legal disclaimer.... A previous poster knows what I'm talking about.
 
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hondaxr650

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After almost rear ending someone with my trailer full of camping gear and motorcycles, I put electric brakes on my trailer. Best $200 I ever spent. You won't regret it. Etrailer.com has loaded backing plates and drums that will likely be an easy bolt-on if your trailer has the mounting flange on the axle, mine did.
 

don4331

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Adsm08: I thought it was only ‘98+ 4x4 SuperCabs which got 8.8s guaranteed. (Note: one of the Ranger which has crossed my driveway had axle code 86 and is definitely 4x4, definitely ‘98, and definitely 3.73 geared open 7.5” with 9” drums – but that might be Canadian thing... we, Canucks, don’t have PATS in our ‘98s either).

Stmitch: When I converted my daughter’s 4x2 to Mustang discs and my 4x4 to Explorer discs*, I did a set of tests in Lowe’s parking lot (for wife's benefit).

We used a driver’s ed passenger’s brake pedal (the one the instructor uses when he needs to stop car) slightly adjusted so we could put a weight on pedal and a 10kg weight (bag of shot).

Test was from 30km/h to stopped; both the automatic 4x4 and manual 4x2 were shifted into neutral while stopping, abs was disabled.

OEM 4x2 stopped in ~25m
OEM 4x4 stopped in ~28m -bigger tires, weight (s/c versus r/c) worked against 4x4.
Mustang discs on 4x2 stopped in >35m
Rear discs weren’t doing squat.
So, we added a proportioning valve.
Mustang discs on 4x2 with valve stopped in ~30m
It takes more force on pedal to produce same result i.e. 12kg of shot on the pedal produced the OEM 25m stopping distance. The proportioning valve was set up to lock the fronts before the rears (same as OEM). Adjusting the proportioning valve to lock rears 1st would produce a stop in ~22m; but I wasn’t about to reinstall the drums to get a comparable test setting drums up to lock 1st. Note: Mustang brakes are from ’02 V-6 (10.5” solid rotors, not the Cobra 11.6” vented ones, Cobra calipers are hard to come by at wrecker, and it was supposed to be inexpensive install).
Our family is over 90th percentile in size, so pushing an extra 20% harder isn't issue, so my wife accepted the result.
The ‘ultimate’ test: With my son’s Mustang’s 225/45R17 summer tires installed on the 4x2 and ABS re-enabled would produce <5m stops from 30 km/h (but significantly more than 10kg force was being applied to pedal).

Explorer discs on 4x4 included the Explorer proportioning valve right from start. Stopping distance was ~30m.
We did tests at 50 & 70km/h and with 30 and 50kg of shot. Distances were too long for safety at the higher speeds with just 10kg shot (some of the stops were >150m); but the results were very proportional between the speed/brake combinations i.e. the Mustang discs without proportioning valve with always 40% longer than OEM. With heavier weights, tires would lock before we stopped which produced inconsistent (and longer) stops. Turning ABS on tended to equalize all system. Also, not having ABS on was too hard on my tires to repeatedly test.

JoshT: Explorer rear brakes for at least the 3 I have had have been solid rotor. Which makes the ’10-11 Ranger rear discs which are vented, the ultimate (at least for an OEM bolt on solution).

Hondaxr650: How did you manage: controller, wiring (vehicle and trailer), breakaway switch/battery, and electric brakes for $200? :) While I agree, electric brake are better (especially will new trucks and their OEM controllers), I couldn’t do electric for under $500; so I installed a surge-hydraulic system(for about $300 - surge brake controller, brakes from '90s Escort adjusted to fit, associated hard lines, hoses & fittings). Additional advantage of the surge-hydraulic, I can tow with my Ranger(the 4x4 s/c), my daughter’s Ranger (r/c 4x2) or wife’s Escape without having to wire everything.

*Not the 4x4 with 9” but another with 10” rear brakes.
 

hondaxr650

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Sorry, Don, I was only figuring the cost of the trailer brakes themselves. It didn't occur to me until now that I did get the controller for free from a friend. I wired it myself, so no cost there. Also, I do not have a breakaway switch, battery etc. It's been a couple of years too, so pricing may have changed a bit.
 

AllanD

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What people always forget when discussing "Better brakes" is to actually DEFINE what constitutes "Better"


Shorter stopping? that seems in my experience to depend as much on tires as anything else.

Quicker thermal recovery is where discs shine...

Remember first that Brakes DO NOT "Stop your vehicle" they simply stop the wheels from turning.

The 9" drums on a gen 1 will lock the wheels with only minor pedal pressure.

It is the TIRES that actually stop the truck and different sizes, different tread patterns and different rubber compounds all have an effect.

Another issue is that very few people actually understand how the drum brakes actually work, and believe incorrectly that simple pressure by the double ended wheel cylinder simply pushes the shoes against the inside of the drums....

The wheel cylinder is only partly responsible, it actually the rotational drag against the shoes that creates a "camming action" between the rotating drum and the curved shoes.
This is because the drum rear brakes used on virtually all RWD and 4wd vehicles
are "Servo actuated drum brakes" and these type of brakes provide a small but very significant amount of mechanical advantage...

Who here has notices that you can lightly apply the brakes, then reduce pedal effort and the brakes continue to have a drogue effect?

THAT is the effect of "servo-actuated" drum brakes,
They are different in-that the brakes only have a single anchor point on the backing plate.

IT must be noted however that they have a flaw, that flaw is that this effect only works in one direction.
This is why your typical RWD drum parking brake is no effective in reverse...

Typically disc brake parking brakes that actuate the caliper work in both directions, but lack mechanical advantage and tend not to hold real well.

the Explorer disc brake set-up uses an internal drum parking brake that is inside the "hat"
of the disc, because this parking brake is rather small and is a "non-servo" brake it works fairly well and equally in both directions.



That all being said, disc brakes are very pad compound sensitive and often don't provide braking action immediately, they often need to "warm-up".

What disc-brakes are best as are repeated hard stops because the discs themselves tend to be better at cooling off between uses than drums.
 

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