Has anyone changed their own brakes?

youracman wrote:

ron.dittmer wrote:

DrewE wrote:
There are no drums on the E-SuperDuty chassis (which was renamed to the E450 a year or two later). It's disc brakes all around, with the parking brake being mounted on the drive shaft in a little housing bolted to the back of the transmission.

Just FYI to the readers.......

My brother has a 1997 E350-V10 (not a Super Duty) motor home with rear drum brakes and a cabled parking brake to them.

I own a 2007 Super Duty E350-V10 motor home with rear disk brakes and a cabled parking brake to them.

The drive shaft parking brake you mention is on the E450 up to and including year 2007. Every year of the E350 to this very day, never had the drive shaft parking brake. The drive shaft parking brake was discontinued starting with year 2008.

Thanks for posting, Ron. Good to know. My 2007 (2006 chassis) has the driveline brake of course and I wish it had the cable system. No problems with it at all, but if/when that driveline unit fails it is sure expen$ive to replace. I believe the main reason for failure is overheating....usually from forgetting to release the parking brake. Fortunately, mine has a loud beeper with different sound than normal to slap me alongside the head when the brake is left on. I may have driven it 100 ft or so that way a couple of times. :^(

I also have read that starting in 2008 the brakes were bigger. I'd sure like that...if for nothing more than to dissipate the heat better (and a bit more stopping power would be welcome too.) Hmmm maybe I need to update to a 2009 rig....or not.

Safe travels ..............

Like you, I too wish I had bigger brakes because bigger is better, right?

But....

I wonder if the current day E350/E450 2008-2018 brakes are actually better. I once compared the specs of our previous generation brakes to the current generation brakes. The current design is just a tad bit bigger in diameter. As little as it might be, that is still a very good thing, I don't knock the benefit at all.

But.....

The current day rotors are separate from the hub. It is not all one piece of metal like it used to be with the previous design. That to me is a downer. Corrosion between rotor and hub can warp the rotor. Heat cannot pass thru corrosion as well as with a one piece design, and the rotor is simply more stable being one with the hub.

If Ford retained a one piece rotor/hub design, but made it bigger, then that would be exceptional.

So I don't feel so deprived knowing that.