nickg

on your 01 the best upgrade is the 3rd gen rotors and pads, down side is you will need 17inch rims.

nickg

MikeL

your stuck with the smaller rotors, as there is nothing you can do to improve the fronts, but for the rear, proper adjustment is key, I have not seen a set yet that will "self" adjust. it has to be done manually,

to test to see if yours are out of adjustment,
1, start truck
2. press on brakes
3. note pedal to floor height
4. press on brakes again
5. note pedal height
6. press on brakes the 3rd time
7. note pedal height

If the pedal rises with each brake application, your rears are out of adjustment, its an easy test and is 99,99% effective at identifying miss adjusted brakes.
If your brake pedal does not rise, the brakes are adjusted properly (or the wheel cylinders are siezed).
even after you think you have adjusted the brakes properly, re-do the above test 9 outta 10 times your brakes wont pass the above test, best way to adjust rears is to crank the star wheel till the wheel locks up THEN back them off for a slight drag, when you think you have it set up, go apply the brakes a couple times to center the shoes in the drum, and recheck for drag/noise, almost without fail you will have to adjust them again

my two cents

Mike L

Hello Nick!

Thank you for your well laid out and detailed reply. I will follow your instructions next week when I have the beast in our nice warm garage. I will beat this issue and get the rears to the point that I have confidence in them.

Merry Christmas!

infidel

If rear discs are so great how come GMC switched back to drums on the their 3/4 tons and bigger?

Seems like Dodge is always about five years behind GMC with changes.

Midnite

I don't understand why so many think the brakes on these trucks are so terrible. I've been able to lock up all four wheels on dry pavement, fully loaded, with both my 1992 and my current 2000 truck. How is better braking going to give me anything when I can already lock up all four wheels?

Robert Rausch

There are several "fixes" to make the rear drum brakes work better. Some people swear by the Chevy wheel cylinder swap, and there are a couple of other fixes as I recall.

In my '95 I got SO tired of adjusting the rear brakes every other month... and if I didn't adjust them they just didn't work. I usually just drove slower and relied on the fronts to stop the truck, and it would always nosedive if I braked hard. All that changed last summer after I bought an 02 Dana 70 with disc brakes and swapped it into my truck. The difference is amazing. The truck doesn't nosedive now, and stops real easy if I have a normal load of fuel and tools. BTW, when I pulled my old drum rear-end I checked the brake shoes--they were original to the truck and had hardly any wear on them! No surprise... they hardly ever did any stopping!!

I also put Hawk pads on the front--they helped too.

Midnite

I can understand the problems of a truck with rears totally out of adjustment, but that's easily dealt with, even if it is tediously repetitive.

Regardless, my point still stands--if I can get all four wheels to lock up, then there is nothing to be gained functionally by modifying the brakes.

nickg

I dont know why I'm gonna bite on this thread,
yes there is still improvement, and many other variables you have not said. MOST trucks cannot lock all 4 wheels (mostly drum/disc set ups) and thoes that do, could be doing it for a number of different reasons. too high tire pressure (most people run 80psi which is TOO much) which results in a very small contact patch with the road, result: skidding brakes and poor stopping

Tire compounds being too hard result in the same (tire and road surface temperatures)

At what speed can you lock up the brakes? 20mph? 40mph? 60mph? (if 4wabs on an 2002 highly unlikely it will ever lock up)

quality of brake pad makes a huge difference. brake fade is a killer on these trucks

Can you haul your truck down from 70mph(panic stop) and still have brakes, If you say yes I know you would stretching the truth
too many variables.

My experienced based off my truck, and 3.5yrs of intown driving 8-10 hrs a day, everyday.
the brakes (frt rotors) on a second gen are too small PERIOD. a mid 80's toyota 4x4 has larger pads

There are countless threads on brakes and their poor performance here is one that I replied to
https://www.dieseltruckresource.com/...=low+dust+stop.

I cut and pasted my reply the last time here for you to read:

Here my two cents,
First a little background, then you can decide if what I'm telling you is valid. I bought my truck 2yrs ago, its used for a delivery service(courior) it sees 8-10hrs a day in city stop and go traffic, hauling loads up to 2500#, I have logged approx 130,000kms of city driving (75,000miles approx)I'm I retired Military Mechanic, so i do all my own repairs. I also have the GM 1 ton rear wheel cyls, and adjust the rears every month, each month sees approx 5000-8000kms.
I believe the longest any brakes have lasted me was 23,000kms or just over 4 months.

OEM pads, were approx 60$ lasted about 2 months, they were quiet, but after a couple hard stops brake fade was evident, to be fair I used these before I had done the rear GM cyl mod.

No Name local parts store pads, lasted a month, lots of brake dust, word not stop worth crap. and were cheap (about 35$)

Wagner thermo Quiets (100$ approx) they were quiet, not too dusty, suffered brake fade, lasted about 3 months,

Raybestos Sure Stops, up till this point were the best of the lot, they flat out stopped, good bite when standing on the pedal, did not seem to brake fade when doing a extended hi-speed stop, lasted 3-4 months.

Bendix (commercial application) they came with a warranty that was good for one replacement set of brakes if you wore them out, but alas they dont honor this in Canada.
These are the holy grail of stopping power, the bite when you hit the pedal is absolutely amazing, they are fairly low dust, and long lasting, a little longer than 4 months and 23,000kms. the ONLY down side is the noise, they squeel alot when under light braking, when approaching a stop, if you push slightly harder the noise stops. These pads were approx 125$

Hawk pads, I have them on there now and they have only about a months use on them, they bite OK, are low dust. and are quiet, were 140$ . they are susposed to be a thicker pad material to help extend brake life. for what I paid and their performance I won't be using them again, I expected better,

NONE of the above pads are hard on the rotors, I replaced the rotors a while back as they were showing some wear, but it was faster to replace them instead of waiting for them to be re-surfaced. I kept them so I could turn them and re-use them the next time I was needing to replace them, just to speed up the down time.

I have read good things about EBC, but cant get them locally, so I stuck with what I could get. right now as soon as I've burned off the Hawks I'm switching the rotors and pads to the bigger 3rd gen brakes, I've already bought the caliper brackets and have 2 sets of factory chrome 3rd gen wheels (17inch) the difference between the 2nd and 3rd gens is huge.

here is how I rated the brakes, factoring in stopping power and longevity, and price, Plse note for each brand I bought the most expensive pad they carried in their line.
Bexdix: By far the best pad! just noisy, excellent stopping power, no fade under repeated hard applications
Raybestos: next best, good stopping power, and quiet
Hawk : Might last longer I dont know yet, but does not stop as good as the above 2 brands, they are close, but I would not buy them again even if they last longer.
Wagner: Quiet, better than OEM for bite, brake fade evident
OEM : cheap pad good if you dont use your truck under hard conditions
Local House brands: a waste of money, if the pads are cheap, thats exactly what they are

Take my opinion for what its worth, every one has brands they like, and use them under different conditions, remember my info is based on my use
__________________

Since this post I have the larger rotors, and cremic pads, pads have over a yr on them and are only 30% worn. I have put 90,000kms on since that post

I dont suffer from brake fade, even under extreme braking conditions that I put my truck thru daily. I have tried a panic stop from 90mph on a back road just to see how they would hold up.. I could smell the stench in the cab, but it stopped and they did not fade as I came to a complete stop.

There are reasons to upgrade your brakes, even if you manage to get all 4 to lock up, yes rear adjustment is a huge factor as well

Again these are my results based on my use of my truck
Nick

Silver R/T

Which particular Hawk pads do you have? I know they make a few different compounds

nickg

looking back they may not have been the "right compound" I believe they were susposed to last longer, I have seen lots of guys post that they were the best bang for their buck, and the set I used was not. at the time I was not aware there were different types of Hawk pads.
I'm using ATE now and they are worth the 60$ I paid

VADSLRAM

I did the GMC brake cylinder swap and now with good tires I can stop as quick as any japarocket.
Best mod I have ever done.

Robert Rausch

I can't answer that question, and Chevy does make strange engineering choices from time to time, but I've put about 8,000 miles on my truck since I swapped my Dana 70 drum rear-end for a Dana 70 disc, and I would NEVER under any circumstances switch back to drums.

Just today I had to back down a very steep driveway that I have backed down many times before with the drum rear-end. With the drum set-up I would have to back down very slowly, and brake constantly, because if I got up any speed at all above 3-4 mph, I would be unable to stop at the bottom of the driveway where it meets the street. Today, with the disc brake rear I purposely let the speed get up to about 10 mph, and then hit the brakes and the truck came to a normal stop. This would not have happened with the drums--I'd have slid out onto the road for sure.

JoeCanuck

The GM cylinders definitely improved the braking action of my truck.

Word is GM went back to rear drums because discs get jammed up with crap and aren't nearly as reliable as drums in the muck.

Midnite

Nickg, I think I'd seen that post before that you cut and pasted. Lots of great info there.

You clearly work your brakes much harder than I work mine. The toughest workout mine get is when I throw the camper on and head out for the weekend. I've really only tried to get all four wheels to lock up at about 45 mph. I don't know if it would act much differently at highway speeds.

In reality, on my current 2000 truck the rears don't totally lock up due to RWAL. On this truck when I say I can get all 4 to lock up, what I mean is that the fronts lock solid and the RWAL kicks in on the rears. If I didn't have RWAL the rears would lock solid as well.

It sounds like my brakes are better than those on most of these trucks.

ghenges

Brakes on the 2nd Gen do indeed suck.

Before the Dodge apologists go off on me, speaking with 60 years experience, the 1 ton Dodge Cummins trucks have been the worst braking vehicles we have ever owned (or driven).
A 1975 C30 dually with hydroboost was the best braking vehicle ever.

A 1992 Dodge Cummins dually was so horrible we replaced the whole rear differential with one from a retired 1979 Chevy 3500. The braking improvement was dramatic!

A Pennsylvania State Trooper friend bought a new 1993 Dodge Cummins dually. One day after his shift still in uniform he jumped into his empty pickup and at the first traffic light rearended a car. He said how embarrassing it was to be in uniform hitting someone in the rear, he said the brakes just didn't work right. Dodge checked the brakes and found nothing wrong. Subsequently he removed the ABS crap and it "fixed" the problem.

Our 2001 Dodge Cummins dually is severely lacking in braking power, despite the hydroboost setup..
When the weather warms up we are going to remove the rear drums and replace them with front disk brakes from another retired Chevy I ton. Didn't even consider obtaining a Dodge rear with disks, such is the faith in Dodge engineering.
--------------------
Some here have suggested brake pads and lining are possible causes of poor braking.
That is so true.
We still use the old dinosaur non-metallic organic pads and linings. They wear faster than metallics and exotics, but they STOP, even when wet.