Hello, all -

I have had my ol' 1997 XL for over 12 years! I still like it very much, have pretty low mileage on it (186,000) km and have very little issues with it.

I have left it as-is for several years now, but have gotten back into the "upgrade" kick recently. This has been started by visiting Pick 'N pull over the summer for extra / better parts from wrecked Expy's/F-250 (LD's) 7700 GVR's, and newer models. The great thing about visiting PNP is that you can compare parts, remove stuff, and generally break things, just to see what other stuff was made for the F-150 that can be easily swapped on for minnimal cost!

I have done some "investigation", and came to the conclusion that it is a very worthwhile upgrade to upgrade the brakes to something better! All of the 97-03 F-150's, in my opinion, have pretty mickey-mouse brakes which are not enough for the weight of the truck. I don't like the fact that the standard brakes and rear drums need almost full brake pedal to do a hard stop; even then, it takes a longer distance than I like.

So, my research has revealed that all late '90s early 2000's Expeditions have had a more substantial front brake system installed. It is actually exactly the same calipers and rotors as the 7700 GVR "Heavy" F-150, otherwise known as the F-250 "Light duty" of 97-98 vintage (except being 5 stud vs 7 stud rotors, and remembering as well the 12 to 14 mm wheel stud size increase in 2000 models). These heavy duty brakes have much larger calipers with more surface area, against a thicker rotor, about 3 cm width versus the thinner standard F-150 rotors. The rotors are heavier, and have a lot more inside space for cooling.

It seems very strange of Ford that they did not make the heavier duty braking system "standard" on all F-150 models, and not just on the HD model and Expy. They are all about the same weight, so I cannot see why all the models would not have the same brakes as standard.

My "research" has revealed that it is pretty much a straight swap of the caliper assembly and the caliper bracket. The HD braket, calipers and pads appear to be a straight swap onto the wheel with 2 bolts. As well, the rotors are a straight off/on swap to the heavier wider rotor set. (The thing to remember is that the whole brake system needs to be concurrently changed; the new HD calipers WILL NOT work with the standard thinner rotors, for example.)

So I caniballized both a wrecked Expy and F-150 7700 for the following stuff: the heavier calipers cost 19.00 each, brake pads in almost new condition at 99 cents x 4 (I measured them and inspected carefully; it appears the brakes and rotors were very recently installed on the Expy before its retirement "accident" to PNP), the "almost new" rotors 18.00 each. Another 15.00 at Parts source each for a re-hone of the rotors I shall get done sometime this week.

Once all together, I shall let you all know how much "better" (or worse...) the braking feels! I hope to get this done maybe next weekend when I have some time. It should be just a swap off/on, bleed the brakes, and then give them a try. Lord knows I did 2 weekends of "research" at PNP, test fitting brakes all weekends, so I hope reality works.

My second, bigger project, is to replace my drums with rear discs. This is a much, much bigger project. The rotors and calipers appear to be all the same size across the board for all '97 to "-03 Expys, F-150 standard and the F-150 7700 version. I will need to get the rear rotors, pads (disc pads and parking brake pads springs and such), and calipers, and I have found all this all in almost brand new condition. I have also taken a park brake cable off of a wrecked rear disc brake F-150 (different park brake cable versus the drum version).

Now, "all" I need is the brake line (different set up from the drum version). The biggest task is to get the backing plates that will fit my 8.8 rear axle. The biggest problem here is that some of the earlier drum brake 8.8 axles like mine, have a different smaller 4 bolt mounting at each end. All the disc brake rear axles appear to have the same larger 4 bolt mountings for the backing plates. The larger bolt mountings appear identical on the 8.8, 9.75, and 10.25 rear axles with discs. This does not help me. So, my solution is one of 2:

-Swap the entire rear axle out which already has the setup for the rear disc brakes, which actually may be the easier task.

-Find a disc brake mounting plate which will fit the 8.8 with the smaller bolt mounting set-up.

Again, my research at PNP on the dozens of wrecked explorers, is that their rear axles with disc brake set ups DO have the smaller 4 bolt pattern, the same as on my 8.8 drum rear. The Explorer backing plate set-up otherwise appears identical in measurements to what is on all the F-150/Expedition disc brake set-ups; so a swap of an explorer backing plate onto my F-150 8.8 rear "should" then fit the calipers, pads, park brake set up and the rotors with no issues. Swapping the backing plates does mean having to pull the axle shaft, which means pulling off the pumpkin back, releasing the bolts, and pulling the axle shafts out, then re-assembly and adding new fluid.

Well, the rear disc conversion will be a winter project. The good news is, I can do the swap on the cheap, for less than $80.00 for all parts. I will let you all know how it works out.

So, has any other crazy guys actually attempted what I am trying here? Wish me luck, then...

 

In doing more research on this, I am soliciting experienced opinions on whether the HD front disc conversion requires swapping out the master cyllinder as well to larger. Is it required to go with the larger caliper front brakes to work effectively?

I have read other postings that said the master cyllinder is required to be changed with a rear-disc conversion for proper proportioning of the brake system. How about the frontonly for now? I am planning to do the swap to the heavy caliper brakes and rotors on my front this weekend. However, the swap of the rear system will have to wait for a while when I have more time.

I am planning to go back to the wreckers if required to pick up a new master cyllinder from a wrecked 98 Expedition or wrecked 2000 F-150 HD 7700. Advice would be helpful, thank you!

 

So how did it go?

I am interested in something similar.

 

So how did it go?

 

Someone did exactly what you're doing on V6F150.com but the website got sold and in the exchange, that priceless information got lost. Please let us know how your progress is going.