breaks

[moabjeeper]

I wish my breaks worked a little bit better. What can I do to impove them. They are on my 91 cherokee. Front has disc rear drum. I dont want to go with disc in the rear(expense right now). I know when I put the 35s on it going to get worse. What can I do to improve it? Has to be inexpense right now. Still looking for those dana 44s.

 

[goin4xn]

Dumb question but when was the last time you flushed the brake fluid out of the system?

I did this in my CJ and it made a noticable different in braking power. In laymans terms the brake fluid gets polluted after a few years and won't work as well. Also - condensation tends to form in the lines (in small amounts) particularly when you work your brakes hard (heating and cooling). The water will settle to the bottom of the brake lines and your braking power will suffer.

I bought fresh DOT 3 (or 4) brake fluid and cracked the bleeder valve on the rear axle furthest from the master cylinder (in the case of my CJ that would be the passanger side rear). Had my brother pump while I opened and closed the bleeder valve (to keep air from getting into the system). Every so often we'd stop and top off the resivor.

I had my brother pump the brakes until I saw the new clear fluid start to come out. Move to the next furthest brake from the master cylinder (the other rear tire) and repeat working your way to the brake that's closest to the master cylinder.

Another thing to check would be your brake lines. I don't know how old your XJ is but the rubber lines on my CJ were 10+ years old. The rubber will swell under pressure and you won't get as much pressure to the calipers (or drums). Replacing with good quality stainless steel lines will help out greatly. In my case I couldn't afford new stainless so I just bought new rubber lines but I think it helped. (Of course I bought the new lines about a month after I flushed the system so I ended up having to bleed air out of the system after I changed the lines - DOH!)

These were just cheap things off the top of my head. I don't know XJ's all that well but I'm sure you could swap the master cylinder for something with a bit more oomph (yes that's a scientific description). Many CJ owners go this route and I've just started to look into it.
Scott