| Well, I have finally done what many others wanted to know about. I did the front blazer brake conversion. The reason for going with this type of brake setup is three fold. One the cost of installing this upgrade on your truck is about 1/3 to 1/2 of what you would pay to install a Stainless Steel Brakes kit or a Baer kit, and this way you can upgrade it as you see fit with some custom brackets. Another reason I did it this way is the aftermarket kits that I have mentioned use a modified stock spindle hub assembly from a truck and it pushes out the front wheels about .40" or so. Which is a big no-no for those of us that have a substantial static drop. To run one of those setups would require you to custom base your front wheel offset off the brake setup and you couldn't even run a regular spare tire for a flat or whatever. Third reason is the availability of parts. As we all know the s-series truck are all over and a number of parts can be found at any parts store and they are reasonably cheap to replace too. In the 1998 model year GM updated the front brake design of the 2wd Blazer's and Jimmy's both 2 and 4 door. GM also updated the entire lineup of GM T-series trucks during this model year. The T-series trucks and the 2wd S-series blazers and Jimmy's all share the same front brake calipers and brake rotors. That bit of info is handy to know being most part stores don't list the newer syle brakes for the 2wd vehicles. The advantage of the newer front brakes is that they use a sealed front hub assembly which offers some neat possibilities in itself. If you have had the front brake assembly apart on the 2wd trucks of the older brake design you will see that the hub assembly, rotor, and ABS reluctor are all one unit. On the 98+ 2wd updated brake assemblies the hub assembly is divorced from the rotor like it is on most FWD cars, f-bodies, and Vettes. Also the hub assembly houses the ABS reluctor and sensor. The advantage of this is that being the rotor caliper combo off another vehicle with the same wheel bolt pattern and you can retain the ABS. Just by using the stock updated 98+ S-series caliper and rotor has advantages over the pre 98 setup on all S-series trucks and all years 2wd S-series pickups. When I installed this setup on my 2000 S10 I ran into a few surprises. To install this upgrade you need to install a set of 98+ blazer spindles whether they be dropped or stock. You also need the hub assembly. This part can be quite pricey new and complete so I would look around and see if you can find them at a salvage yard, it's a sealed unit so much can't go wrong with them if the seals are good. The calipers and be bought for about $100 each remanufactured. Rotors are about $80 new. Another problem I ran into when I first did the converson was that I used the stock truck lines at first. They were pinching at full wheel lock because the truck hard line brackets are different then the 98+ blazer brackets. The solution to this is the installation of the Blazer brake line brackets on the frame GM part numbers 15008833 and 15008834. I also installed stainless steel braided lines as an upgrade but they aren't needed. Just a side note the Blazer and truck rubber lines are different but others that have done the conversion have had luck with the stock truck lines. Depending on your truck will determine if you need the blazer lines or not. The 98+ blazer calipers are a dual piston design that resemble the C5 and 4th gen LS1 type caliper design from PBR but just on a smaller scale. The stock 98+ blazer rotor is 11" in diameter. The big gain is the addition of the dual piston caliper. The one picture I have posted is a comparison from the stock caliper to the blazer one. |
