Just did the Chevy 1 ton wheel cylinder upgrade
 

Last night we just did the Chevy one ton wheel cyl upgrade. "Raybestos part # WC37337" . Not having decent brakes for 2 years , and problems with overheating the front pads ...I gotta tell you , my brakes are stellar now. Truck stops instantly . I recommend it for the cheap upgrade

Leeboy,Can you tell us some more detail,do they bolt right on?Do you use different brake shoes as well?Are the clyenders larger?Do you have equal braking now on the backs,can you lock up the brakes and have the rear wheels skid as well?Details please!

Hi, yes they bolt directly in , and I used my same shoes that were on the the stock cylinders. Only have a few miles on them, but the nose of the truck sure bites in now and you can feel it pull you forward,in your seat. Haven't locked them up yet, but in 6 years or so owning this truck, the stopping power is night and day. We just bolted them on and bled them. I will try and do some skids this weekend .

I bypassed the brake portion controller and did the Chevy wheel cylinder dealy on my '99 but didn't feel that much improvement. The camper weight just overwhelmed the stock brakes. What finally worked was an exhaust brake. Glad that worked for you.

I bypassed the brake proportioning valve per Dodge TSB and did the Chevy wheel cylinder dealy on my '99 but didn't feel that much improvement. The camper weight just overwhelmed the stock brakes. What finally worked was an exhaust brake. Glad that worked for you.

I found on my 01 hauling an rv through the mountains,my front brakes were doing all the work,my fronts would be smoken hot and rears only warm,no matter how close a set up the drum brakes.I thought for sure bypassing the brake proportioning valve would fix this problem as suggested by Danderson.Did you by-pass the valve by putting a new brake line by-passing the valve or disconnecting the the bar to the axle adjustment?

That's the same as my fronts were always smoking and pedal would fade to nothing. I didn't bypass anything, just bolt on, adjust rears and bleed.

Yeah,removed the valve entirely and bypassed it with a Mopar specific hose. The TSB was only for constantly max laden trucks. What a selling point in '94 if Dodge boasted of the shortest stopping distance of the big three. What would it have cost for bigger drums/shoes or as they did in 2001.5 and add rear discs?

Danderson,I removed the weight adjusting bar to the axle and now set it by hand so it thinks it,s always carrying a heavy load,i like my rear brakes to do as much braking as the front,I seem to have achieved that although you stated it still was not enough braking with your by-pass fix.If you hammer the brakes on a dirt road,do your rears lock up?Mine do now,however wish i had also gone to the 1 ton brakes cylinders as well.

That's best for you. My camper was always on(this was w/my '99) and I could never get the rears to lock up.

So ,is it just me that wants the rear drums to do as much work as the front disc,s OR do you guys think thats desirable as well?

My experience upgrading to 1-ton wheel cylinders
 

Having just completed my rear drum brake overhaul and upgrade on my 97 2500 I thought this would be a good time to chime in and possibly help others contemplating this. I know this is a somewhat old thread but thought I'd throw in my experience on this topic none the less.

Anyway, back on topic, I just completed this rebuild, along with some other non-brake related work, this past weekend. What drove me to this was a while back my right rear parking brake cable was damaged by some fence repair wire that got wrapped around the axle during a hunting trip in CO. The wire basically wrapped so tightly around the axle that as it became more and more wrapped, it pulled on the cable so hard that the outer jacket snapped, resulting in a severe imbalance between the rear brakes when applying the parking brake, making the parking brake unusable. Before that happened I had already bought new brake shoes and had already read about upgrading to 1-ton Chevy wheel cylinders and bought these too, so this incident provided the catalyst for a complete rebuild and upgrade. During this time I took a couple of weeks off work to do the brake work and install a gooseneck hitch and air bag suspension and do some other work around the house. A turbo upgrade and inline exhaust brake are my next major projects for the truck.

So, having determined this would be a complete overhaul of my rear brakes and having worked on drum brakes on our old Jeep CJ-7 in the past, I started by taking several photos of the brake components before I started removing anything. I highly recommend this to anyone doing this job, especially if this is your first time or it's been a while since you've worked on drum brakes. One thing I quickly realized was the brake adjusters at the bottom had become corroded/gummed up by years of use and were basically not working any more. The left brake adjuster was frozen to the point it wouldn't turn at all. So, during this overhaul, I cleaned everything, especially the adjusters, so they could turn as freely as new parts.

With everything cleaned up and the brake drums freshly resurfaced, the installation of new parts began. I even bought a new parking brake equalizer/tension adjuster to replace the corroded OEM part. The hardest thing to deal with were the new parking brake cables. One of the new cables had a rubber washer that wasn't part of the original design and this occupied too much space for the flared-finger retention end to be pushed into the backing plate and lock into place. The outside portion also didn't have any real protective cover to minimize the entry of "stuff" from getting in so I improvised and made some from the covers on the old cables. With that out of the way, the last thing I did before the reassembly of parts began was to install the new 1-ton wheel cylinders. I was very pleased to discover the Chevy 37337 parts were a direct fit in all regards.

After getting everything back together and an initial parking brake adjustment I performed several complete stops while backing up to allow the brake adjusters to do the work of setting the brake shoes to a good working position. This step of braking to a COMPLETE stop while backing up was emphasized in the factory service manual, as it said just hitting the brakes without coming to a complete stop will not activate the brake adjuster lever and engage the adjuster wheel - only a complete stop will do that. All I can say about that is my truck stops straight and true after doing this brake job, so they must be braking properly and equally on both sides.

Now, about the improvement due to the 1-ton cylinders. After running the truck through our rural subdivision roads to make sure everything was normal, I drove out on a couple of 2-lane hi-ways nearby and got up to about 60 mph. This too convinced me everything was running normal and it gave me the opportunity to experience the difference and improvement in braking. I was immediately impressed with how much less pedal pressure was needed to brake the truck AND how much more positive the braking was in slowing the truck or coming to a complete stop. Having done brake jobs on all our vehicles over many years, I know it's best to not brake too aggressively in the first 100 miles or so, but even so, I noticed a definite improvement in both areas - considerably less pedal pressure required and the feeling that the rear brakes were providing considerably more to the braking process. Bottom line is I highly recommend this 1-ton wheel cylinder upgrade to anyone who may be wanting to improve their 2nd Gen truck's braking. I'm now much less inclined to feel the need to spend hundreds more for a disc brake conversion.

So, I hope my experience can he helpful to others. I've gained a lot of helpful ideas, tips and tricks here over the years and wanted to pay it forward.

Great writeup, Rockyhud.

It's interesting to me that some folks' experience hasn't been very impressive. When I did mine I had much the same experience as you--huge improvement.

Regarding the proportioning valve, I removed the pivot arm and zip-tied the valve, trying various positions until I had it just right. For me, "just right" means that the fronts lock up just a fraction of a second before the rears.

It's very important that you not adjust the valve so that the rears lock up before the fronts! When your rear wheels lock up, the back end will slide out to the side, and you will lose directional stability/control. If the fronts lock up before the rears, generally the truck will just plow straight ahead, which is far better than sliding out sideways.

I did my upgrade years ago. Absolutely no regrets. I didn't touch the proportioning valve, I let the ABS system do it's thing. I find under hard braking conditions with an empty bed I get this feeling like the brakes are letting go but it's all in my head. The passengers don't feel any difference. With any kind of weight in the back the rig just stops like a dream.

I'm one of those that didn't feel much of a gain in braking.
My '98.5 2500 auto 4wd had decent brakes when new,stock 245's. 285's decreased the braking and adding an 1800# popup yielded scary freeway braking.
The one ton cylinders helped a dab and I did the Mopar TSB where you bypass the proportioning valve with vehicles that are constantly carrying a big load.
I had a DTT trans and added a Pacbrake. Finally decent stopping power.
My friend's got the same year with a NV5600 which has the Dana 80 rearend and that truck's always had pretty good brakes with the increase in brake components size.