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All I can say is: WOW, it's nice to be able to stop again!
My 33's were a little too much for the stock brakes on my '87 XJ, and it was to the point where I couldn't lock up the brakes in a panic stop, even standing on the the pedal (literally... my butt was off the seat) with both feet!
I got a hold of some WJ knuckles, calipers and rotors, and had a set of TJ bearings that I got when I bought a set of axles with 297x u-joints. Also needed the master cylinder and vacuum booster from a WJ, and spacers made my Mark at ORGS Mfg.
I'm not going too much into detail (since I didn't take any pics), but basically welded the spacers onto the knuckles, installed the knuckles (with new balljoints) and all the WJ parts bolted into place just like the stock pieces. Bled the calipers and tested... no leaks! At this point, I have the axle parts (no booster/MC) and noticed a slight improvement due to greater swept area. Basically, there was a lot less fade than with the stock parts, which would overheat quite easily. I drove like this for about a month before I finished the swap.
A week or so ago, I got the booster and M.C. delivered and installed them this last weekend. I also needed to get brakelines from the Jeep dealer, since WJ's use a bubble flared line in an uncommon size. These are the lines that go from the MC to the proportioning valve. I cut off one end of each line, bent the lines to the correct placement, and flared on the standard (non-metric) fittings and plumbed in the MC. Bench-bled the MC, and bled the whole braking system (which also means all-new brake fluid!
) and again... WOW! I went for a short test drive and upon application of the pedal, the brakes immediately begin to slow the rig down. I got up to about 25-30 MPH and mashed the pedal... SCREEECH! It's been so long since I've able to lock up the front tires 
Next on the bench is a rear disc swap using ZJ parts. Hopefully that will help restore some of the brake bias, as now the nose dives quite a bit more than it did last week 
Chuck
p.s.: special thanks to Mike (MJR) for doing this swap first and taking tons of pics as well as for parts, and to Chris_L for donating parts he was going to use, but didn't need since his new axle already has the big brakes.
My 33's were a little too much for the stock brakes on my '87 XJ, and it was to the point where I couldn't lock up the brakes in a panic stop, even standing on the the pedal (literally... my butt was off the seat) with both feet!
I got a hold of some WJ knuckles, calipers and rotors, and had a set of TJ bearings that I got when I bought a set of axles with 297x u-joints. Also needed the master cylinder and vacuum booster from a WJ, and spacers made my Mark at ORGS Mfg.
I'm not going too much into detail (since I didn't take any pics), but basically welded the spacers onto the knuckles, installed the knuckles (with new balljoints) and all the WJ parts bolted into place just like the stock pieces. Bled the calipers and tested... no leaks! At this point, I have the axle parts (no booster/MC) and noticed a slight improvement due to greater swept area. Basically, there was a lot less fade than with the stock parts, which would overheat quite easily. I drove like this for about a month before I finished the swap.
A week or so ago, I got the booster and M.C. delivered and installed them this last weekend. I also needed to get brakelines from the Jeep dealer, since WJ's use a bubble flared line in an uncommon size. These are the lines that go from the MC to the proportioning valve. I cut off one end of each line, bent the lines to the correct placement, and flared on the standard (non-metric) fittings and plumbed in the MC. Bench-bled the MC, and bled the whole braking system (which also means all-new brake fluid!
) and again... WOW! I went for a short test drive and upon application of the pedal, the brakes immediately begin to slow the rig down. I got up to about 25-30 MPH and mashed the pedal... SCREEECH! It's been so long since I've able to lock up the front tires Next on the bench is a rear disc swap using ZJ parts. Hopefully that will help restore some of the brake bias, as now the nose dives quite a bit more than it did last week Chuck
p.s.: special thanks to Mike (MJR) for doing this swap first and taking tons of pics as well as for parts, and to Chris_L for donating parts he was going to use, but didn't need since his new axle already has the big brakes.