Last summer I found some wheels/tires from a 3rd gen truck for cheap. $100. Included some tires which were around 25% tread. Those serviced me until this week. Stumbled onto another set with 60% tread for $200. These are Wild Country Raidial XLT's.  These will get me through the winter. Then I'll have 2 sets of chrome rims to mount winter/summer tires onto. Plus I'm working on going to 3rd gen brakes.

My question is ...are the benefit of 3rd gen brakes mostly seen in the front, or do front and rear both add to braking ability?

Edited November 20, 20159 yr by joecool911

Really depends on ho much of a  load is on or in the rear end as there is a proportioning valve in the rear brakes that adjusts the amount of braking power the rear brakes apply depending on how much the suspension has dropped. You may notice a valve in a brake line with a linkage on it.

I put fronts from 03 and up on mine and noticed big difference not huge but enough that I could tell. Now for the rear I almost did it few days ago but left mine on for now as they are still 3/4 life left.  Fronts are bigger in diameter and width of pad, but rears use same pad but are larger in diameter, even parking shoes are same size, so the only difference in rear is diameter slightly bigger which will help some. If yours are wore and you're going to buy rotors pads, then spend another$50 on caliper brackets and upgrade. Reason I went trough my rears just now is my backing plates for parking shoes were shot and couldn't find any that were made for 2002 but then I bought backing plates for 03 and up and they fit perfect. 

Living in the mountains of Idaho and I'm getting over 180k out of brake pads on stock 16" brakes. I'd say look towards exhaust before going to 17" inch tires and brakes. Even my 1996 Gasser got quite bit of miles on the brakes still not wore out after all these years. I bought it back 2001. Just to make you all think abit.

 

I'm going to do my fronts when these wear out. I'm not going to worry about the backs though.

I rebuilt my calipers and installed new pads (which came with the truck when I bought it).  So the front rebuild cost me around $10 for caliper kits. But I should'a put rotors on, as I get a bit of vibration while braking. 

For us guys with automatic transmissions...exhaust brakes are problematic. 

I used to do front brakes about every 60k IIRC. I have put about 150k on the last set and still have another 40k left on them. I replaced the rear oe pads at near 275k. Still had some pad left but the backing plates were starting to rust away.

11 hours ago, dripley said:

I used to do front brakes about every 60k IIRC. I have put about 150k on the last set and still have another 40k left on them. I replaced the rear oe pads at near 275k. Still had some pad left but the backing plates were starting to rust away.

Well good thing you now know for sure that rear backing plates that are so hard to find for 01.5-02 are exact same as 03 through can't remember. Good time to maybe do hub seals and check bearing, mine were fine at 140k, did look like they might of spun a bit on axle housing, so I used a punch and a hammer and put a few small divots around spindle so bearing don't spin where it shouldn't.