Rear disc brakes on an XJ
I removed the rear spindles, calipers, discs, and hard line from a wrecked Liberty KJ/KK, and put them on my '98 XJ. This was a relatively easy swap. (I had a book which gave me the inspiration and guidance for this and other revisions, Eric Zappe's "The Jeep Cherokee XJ 1984-2001: Advanced Performance Modifications". It has step-by-step directions for this swap.)
The KJ spindles bolt exactly into the place of of the XJ's. The only wrinkle was very minor - the XJ parts had SAE threads; the KJ, metric. So I used the XJ spindle bolts, and the hard line nuts on the KJ spindles, with the KJ hard lines. The unforeseen part was that I had to run to get a SAE-to-Metric adaptor to attach the KJ hard line to the brake line union/junction block over the rear differential. (The alternative was to use the XJ hard line and buy two adapters for the KJ spindles.)
I was releived that there was no need to change the XJ's proportioning valve. I did this change during a winter, so I tested it by going out on an icy country road and mashing the brakes. The XJ tracked straight and true; later tests on dry roads also showed good results. This was a great change. The braking was much improved, and the pads far outlasted shoes. I sold the XJ in 2015 at 235,000 miles and got a JKU, and I never had to replace those pads, with over 100M miles on them.
I removed the rear spindles, calipers, discs, and hard line from a wrecked Liberty KJ/KK, and put them on my '98 XJ. This was a relatively easy swap. (I had a book which gave me the inspiration and guidance for this and other revisions, Eric Zappe's "The Jeep Cherokee XJ 1984-2001: Advanced Performance Modifications". It has step-by-step directions for this swap.)
The KJ spindles bolt exactly into the place of of the XJ's. The only wrinkle was very minor - the XJ parts had SAE threads; the KJ, metric. So I used the XJ spindle bolts, and the hard line nuts on the KJ spindles, with the KJ hard lines. The unforeseen part was that I had to run to get a SAE-to-Metric adaptor to attach the KJ hard line to the brake line union/junction block over the rear differential. (The alternative was to use the XJ hard line and buy two adapters for the KJ spindles.)
I was releived that there was no need to change the XJ's proportioning valve. I did this change during a winter, so I tested it by going out on an icy country road and mashing the brakes. The XJ tracked straight and true; later tests on dry roads also showed good results. This was a great change. The braking was much improved, and the pads far outlasted shoes. I sold the XJ in 2015 at 235,000 miles and got a JKU, and I never had to replace those pads, with over 100M miles on them.
