2010-2013 Rear Disc Brake Conversion - Is there any serious interest from owners here in the United States?

[jdob]

This is for owners of 2010-2013 vans here in the US that were only available with rear drum brakes. I am trying with help from ModYourConnect in the UK to get a conversion kit made that would fully convert the US van with standard rear drum brakes over to standard rear disc brakes that were available on some models in the UK. 

 

This is just an attempt to gauge interest if it would be worth the time and effort for ModYourConnect to offer such a kit to us here in the US?

 

I know that pricing is going to be the main concern - and at this time there is no official price point. Just piecing the parts together myself that I could find from sellers on ebayuk - I was ending up around $800 US dollars. Some of the parts are not available aftermarket and have to be purchased from Ford - so it is not going to be "cheap".

 

And then you will have to figure in having it shipped from the UK to the US which will also incur more cost. 

 

So is there any other owners out there that would seriously be interested in purchasing such a kit? Keep in mind that even if it were to be made available it would more than likely have to be paid for in advance - then ordered - so there would also be some wait time involved. 

 

If anyone knows of any other US based Transit Connect forums or groups please forward this info to them if possible. I will also make a post on the Transit Connect USA Facebook page - but the more interest that can be drawn up the better. More serious buyers may also mean that ModYourConnect could possibly be able to attain better pricing for larger quantities. 

 

Let me know what you all think. Thanks!

 

 

[jdob]

The only reason I personally want to upgrade the rear drums to discs is for looks to be honest. I don't want to lower my van and put wheels & tires on it - to be looking at a big ugly rusted brake drum! A big brake kit would be awesome - but just stock size with new rotors and refinished calipers would be fine for me. If I had the newer mk2 van I would definitely just be putting the blue Focus RS kit on there like others have done - If I knew that would fit on the mk1 vans - I would have already gone that route - but I haven't been able to find out any info on that...

[jdob]

I am going to purchase a conversion from ModYourConnect if they are successful sourcing all of the parts. It's just a matter of supply and demand and whether others are willing to pay the cost upfront if ModYourConnect will make additional kits available for purchase to other customers...I have my lowering kit now from ModYourConnect but am waiting to see if I can get the parts for the rear disc brake conversion before getting started on it - so that I can do it all at once...

[G B L]

On 8/25/2022 at 10:44 PM, jdob said:

The only reason I personally want to upgrade the rear drums to discs is for looks to be honest

Well if you lived here that would not be much of a reason.

This is what 2.5 years and 28000 miles looks like around here!

[jdob]

My 2012 van was originally from PA - so although I got it three years ago with only 16k miles on it - it pretty much looks the same. Trying to clean all of that. Since it is in NC now - shouldn’t be as hard to keep it clean. 

[lowspeedpursuit]

I'm not sitting here staring at my rear hubs, and I can't find a picture (or a diagram. Do they not do exploded-view diagrams in the UK?) of the rear disc brake option to save my life. But, the hard part is basically just the backing plates, right? Like, once the caliper has somewhere to bolt to, you just need a rotor with the correct pattern and sufficient depth, and a caliper of comparable thickness, plus a way to actuate the parking brake. There's gotta be something out there that doesn't need to be be imported at tremendous cost, right? Is the issue that none of the potential alternatives will package inside a 15" wheel?

 

Are the backing plates the part that's proving difficult to source in the first place?

[jdob]

On 9/3/2022 at 11:47 AM, lowspeedpursuit said:

I'm not sitting here staring at my rear hubs, and I can't find a picture (or a diagram. Do they not do exploded-view diagrams in the UK?) of the rear disc brake option to save my life. But, the hard part is basically just the backing plates, right? Like, once the caliper has somewhere to bolt to, you just need a rotor with the correct pattern and sufficient depth, and a caliper of comparable thickness, plus a way to actuate the parking brake. There's gotta be something out there that doesn't need to be be imported at tremendous cost, right? Is the issue that none of the potential alternatives will package inside a 15" wheel?

 

Are the backing plates the part that's proving difficult to source in the first place?

 

lowspeedpursuit - The backing plates are the most expensive piece to this puzzle. I have searched eBay UK and have never been able to find any used or aftermarket, and when inquiring if someone selling a complete axle that includes them will sell them separately the answer is always no. And most all sellers refuse to ship to the US - no matter how much you are willing to pay for shipping - they just don't want to do it for whatever the reason.

 

While searching the internet from one end to the other - I stumbled across this site which is a great help for Transit Connect parts/diagrams: ford.7zap.com

 

 

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Sick, thank you for the resource. So the critical part isn't what I would normally call the "backing plate" at all, since that's just a dust shield in this application, but rather the "caliper bracket"--which some of these foreign websites are unhelpfully calling "backing plate"--and which is equally inexplicably never offered for sale along with the caliper. Forgive me if I'm retreading steps you've already taken, but did you say you already called Ford, to try and turn 4387369 into a real (engineering) part number? Or called a parts company from the cross-reference list we know operates here, like Bosch, and ask if they can provide the bracket that goes with the caliper?

 

On the domestic side, 2nd-gen and Focus brackets appear to be horizontally larger at the spindle mount. Have you measured against the Edge/Escape/Fusion bracket? It looks an awful lot closer.

 

In any event, Focus rotors have a shallower hat, so if you put a Focus rotor on the TC hub, the disc would sit 1/2" further out from the spindle than stock. I can see using that space to try and adapt their bracket. Even if domestic calipers could be rigged up, though, I think you might always be stuck importing the parking brake cables.

 

I'll measure the spacing of the spindle mounting holes tomorrow and go compare whatever Ford brackets I can lay hands on next time I'm at the junkyard.

[jdob]

The knuckle/hub/spindle they are calling it - is the hard/expensive part to get. You can buy it new from overseas, but they are nearly $300 each and of course you need both a left & right hand side - so around $600 just for those…

[lowspeedpursuit]

Ah, that makes perfect sense. Forgive me, I skipped that part because some utter shitgibbon took the day off making the parts diagrams for our vans, and used a line drawing of a spindle which clearly still has the caliper mounting provisions, even though that's not what's actually in there.

 

So at that point, what about fabricating the UK spindle base plate in its entirety, and bolting it on behind ours? I think that adapter is the linchpin of a lot of disc brake conversions where junkyard parts are unavailable.

[lowspeedpursuit]

Negative, I find extracting information from video tutorials difficult and tedious. I know Focus Gen3+ don't use rear spindles, and I quickly pulled up an '08 Focus and saw that it didn't offer rear discs, so I stopped looking at the Focus as a source for the mounting provisions. Now I see it looks like the even older Gen1 had both rear spindles and optional discs, and Focused Hands is installing those older parts on a newer Focus?

 

Setting the imported spindles aside for the moment, and recognizing that fabricating an adapter isn't an option for everyone, we can try to find a domestic donor spindle, but it has to be close enough to fit our mounting flange and not be just as rare as the UK spindles.

 

Our spindle bolts make a perfect rectangle, right? Whereas the focus bolts are a trapezoid. Do any of the distances match up, so we would have 2 or 3 out of the 4 holes in the right place? In any event, the Focus Gen1 rear disc spindles are discontinued, and the oldest Focus in my junkyard is an '05, so they don't really meet the "not rare" criteria either.

 

Off the top of my head, the Promaster still has rear spindles and discs, but my yard doesn't have any of those either. I've seen someone mention the Nissan Quest, but it didn't have discs.

 

What other vehicles are worth investigating? There's a Dodge Caravan out there; the calipers on that bolt to the backing plates.

 

EDIT: Okay, so it's not exactly a rectangle. Top spacing is 3", Bottom is ~2+7/8", and sides are ~2+3/8"

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
measurements

[lowspeedpursuit]

Oh don't get me wrong, if I find the answer I'll definitely let you guys know, but I have little idea how to begin compiling potential donors. Basically we want a spindle with caliper provisions--or barring that, a dedicated bracket--which shares the bolt spacing of our flange to at least some degree, because if none of the bolt holes match, you've gained nothing over just making the bracket yourself. The Gen1 Focus is worth investigating if somebody else can actually find one. I have no idea if the Promaster is anywhere close, although based on the hub dimensions it doesn't look blatantly too large. There's also the possibility of literally cutting the face off the Gen3 Focus rear knuckle and turning that into the bracket, if it's strong enough.

 

Beyond that? Having started with other minivans, or vehicles with dead rear beams, that I actually have at my Junkyard: the Grand Caravan backing plate bracket is clearly too large. The Sienna isn't even close to square, although the narrower holes might match our height dimension. Ditto for the Chevy Cruze, but for the length.

 

EDIT: Yeah, everything else that's popping into my head so far has what we want either integrated into the rear knuckle, or the entire axle assembly.

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
info

[lowspeedpursuit]

Went to the junkyard today. Had a lot to do and not much free time, but I looked at the rear end of a 3rd-gen Focus, I believe 2013.

 

Wheel bearing bolt spacing matches (or approximates) ours on the vertical only. Top horizontal is 3-1/2". Bottom is 4". It's also pretty cumbersome to get around behind the knuckle to unbolt the bearing.

 

Basically, it's not particularly close. I don't see any advantage in attempting to modify the face of the Focus knuckle into an adapter, versus fabrication from scratch.

[Don Ridley]

My 2016 TC has rear disc brakes. Are these the same as the Gen3 Focus? 

[lowspeedpursuit]

1 hour ago, Don Ridley said:

My 2016 TC has rear disc brakes. Are these the same as the Gen3 Focus? 

 

Looks similar, but not the same. Focus rotor hat is shallower. I can't be sure of the differences in the bearings without having them in front of me, but from pictures, the bolt spacing on the 2nd-gen TC looks even wider. Also, according to the parts diagrams, the mounting flange on the 2nd-gen TC appears to be integrated into the rear beam. So, turning the flange into an adapter would mean cutting the beam. My junkyard charges $20 for a knuckle, so buying the 3rd-gen Focus knuckles to cut them up into adapters would be doable. Even if we had more TCs in the yard, if I have to pay for the entire 2nd-gen TC rear end to get the flanges, I would just put that beam under my van and be done with it.

[Dooma]

Hello. But I want rear disc brakes not because how it looks first (it is important also) because of tiredness of constant chewing sounds during braking. What a stupid designed it!? So, how is going the conversion? I'm really interested. TC 2010

Edited October 23, 2022 by Dooma
mistake

[lowspeedpursuit]

On 10/22/2022 at 11:23 PM, Dooma said:

Hello. But I want rear disc brakes not because how it looks first (it is important also) because of tiredness of constant chewing sounds during braking. What a stupid designed it!? So, how is going the conversion? I'm really interested. TC 2010

 

jdob made this thread to gauge interest in putting together a kit, and didn't get much feedback. So presumably even if he moves ahead with the project, it would be a one-off build for his own van, and importing the parts would remain difficult for anybody else.

 

I'm still "working" on it--in an extremely non-urgent sort of way. Affordable used rear disc spindles that actually offer US shipping popped up on European Ebay, but the seller has expressed reservations because the donor is non-ABS, and the language barrier is making it difficult for me to explain that I can work around that.

 

 

Assuming I have the spindles in my hand in a few weeks, I can start testing shit like accurately duplicating the base plate as an adapter bracket without having to do a ton of measurement work, and finding a domestic caliper that will bolt up. On top of the cost (and difficulty, since no-one wants to ship) of laying hands on the ROW parts, I'm also not super comfortable committing to imported wear items, so a domestic caliper and pads are a must for me. The whole advantage of disc brakes over drums is meant to be ease of maintenance.

 

If he won't ship, my fabricating a bracket from scratch is even further on the back burner. As before, I also have no idea what to do about the parking brake cables. US vans are all automatic, so it's not necessarily a showstopper on other progress. One thing at a time.

 

Edited October 24, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit
proofreading

[lowspeedpursuit]

Have you actually laid hands on the Gen. 1 Focus spindle since a month or two ago to confirm that it will fit, or can be modified to fit? I still don't see any on Ebay, or at local junkyards.

 

Again, it looks clear that all four bolt holes won't line up with the TC flange. Do any? Can those that don't be redrilled? Are the Gen. 1 TC locations too close, so that the old holes would need to be welded closed for stability?

 

Are the spindles themselves the same size, so our hub bearings will fit? Or would you need to run 4-lug to 5-lug adapters?

 

 

Obviously you can build what you like, but I don't know if there's a ton of value in the Gen. 1 Focus for this project. We can't even answer these basic fitment questions because the Gen. 1 Focus rear disc spindles seem damn near as rare as the European TC ones.

[jdob]

I just started to install my lowering kit that I purchased from ModYourConnect this past weekend. Still working around a few bugs that I encountered - nothing major - just trying to get what I want out of it...During the process I contacted ModYourConnect to inquire about the rear disc conversion - their reply was that they are just too busy at the moment to worry about figuring that out right now...So for now I am just trying to work the suspension stuff out - I'll worry about the rear disc conversion later - but it still is on my want list for the future. You can see pics of my progress with the suspension install in the gallery...Thanks!

 

[Double Nickels]

On 10/24/2022 at 11:14 AM, lowspeedpursuit said:

I don't know if there's a ton of value in the Gen. 1 Focus for this project

 

 

Somewhere along the line, you have to set the price point for feasibility.    The value of a van which has been out of production since 2013, vs how much money and time you are willing to invest.  If you had an open budget, you could experiment.  Go out and get a bunch of different things that might work, and try.  Most people aren't comfortable with that.  If you had an open budget, you could re-engineer the van.  It's a front wheel drive van.  You could cut and weld to heart's desire.  Remove the entire rear end.  Replace everything.  Get a rear end from another vehicle with disc brakes.  But at what cost?  

 

This project does sound like you can make it work.  Not like the guy who tried to put in a Ford Focus engine and stick shift.  If anyone remembers that build, with all the years and who knows how much money.

 

Just for fun, look at what these guys did with a little van.  They didn't make it stop better.  They made it go faster.

 

 

 

 

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

7 hours ago, Double Nickels said:

Not like the guy who tried to put in a Ford Focus engine and stick shift.  If anyone remembers that build,

Damn, that guy failed? I read like 1 post from that thread; I though he had it working. Or did he get it finished, but it was still a colossal money-pit?

 

7 hours ago, Double Nickels said:

Go out and get a bunch of different things that might work, and try.  Most people aren't comfortable with that.

The tinkering and bullshit is my hobby just as much as I enjoy the finished product. I'm in a seasonal industry, so I have a shitload of free time over the winter, but I also can't take the van out of service for more than a weekend at a time, since family's dailying it. I was certainly never going to pay new Ford prices + international shipping for every part you'd need to make this work for sure. It's junkyard and fabrication or bust.

 

In any event, the left spindle, at least, is allegedly in transit. Asked some other random Europeans to ship me the right, but it's hard to strike a balance. They're worried I might fraudulently claim a refund and they'll be out the international shipping, I'm worried they might scam me outright because their junkyard's website looks like a '90s geocities page, etc.

 

I also took a look at a Gen. 1 Fusion. It's pretty easy to discount the spindle just from pictures, but the bolt holes are confirmed 2+1/4" square, maybe an RCH more. For $10, I kept one of the calipers to try and adapt later. Mounting holes are 4" apart, and each is 3.5" from bearing center.

 

 

[Fifty150]

15 hours ago, lowspeedpursuit said:

that guy failed?

 

 

We really don't know.  He would post about having different problems, and how he was planning to address the problems.  Then he stopped posting.  He never posted an end result with 100% success.  He just sort of left us at his last mistake.

[lowspeedpursuit]

So I'm finally holding this stupid thing. I only have the left one, the seller is being obtuse about the refund for not sending the right one, and it took an entire month to get here after someone apparently lost it at one or the other international airport for 2.5 weeks. Attempts to buy early Focus rear disc spindles fell through; every listing I checked was misinventoried and didn't exist.

 

 

Caliper bracket bolt hole separation is ~3+1/4". Caliper bracket bolt to bearing center is ~3+3/8". Both of these numbers differ from the Fusion, although the latter is close.

 

 

I'm also holding the caliper bracket from a 2012 (3rd-Gen, no rear spindles) Focus, which appears identical or exceptionally close to the 2nd-Gen TC bracket. It shares the Fusion's 4" bolt separation, making it 3/4" too wide to bolt up to the 1st-Gen Euro TC spindle.

 

 

So, as I suspected previously, just having the spindles still doesn't give you brakes, because the most common domestic calipers won't bolt up, and I'm not running an expensive/import wear item.

A caliper bracket with 3+1/4" bolt spacing will have to be found, fabricated, the 4" bracket modified, or the entire mount plate fabricated out of 1/4" steel, which is what I'll probably end up doing this winter.

 

If anyone knows of a 3+1/4" caliper, fire away. I haven't looked super hard, but IIRC there are other vehicles which appear to cross with the 1st-Gen Euro TC setup, but they're also the Euro-only versions.

 

Edited November 27, 2022 by lowspeedpursuit

[jdob]

I was also able to find some used rear disc spindles from eBay UK. Unfortunately they are playing ping pong between the seller and the forwarding service that I found to use. Sent to the forwarding service, refused, sent back to the seller, shipped a second time, returned to the seller a second time as being undeliverable...I paid the seller some additional postage to try it a third time after verifying all of the address info was correct - then the mail carriers in the UK went on strike...You really can't make this stuff up...Anyways my original order was back on October 29th and I just got notification today that the item has arrived at the forwarding service and is ready for dispatch to the US...So I guess it should be showing up sometime soon - probably some delay due to the Christmas shipping volume going on around the world at the moment. But no hurry - it's only the first piece of the puzzle at this point...still more to figure out...

Edited December 10, 2022 by jdob

[jdob]

So after just short of two months I finally received the rear disc brake spindles from the UK. It was roughly $100 for both the left & the right including the hubs as pictured and then roughly another $100 for shipping to the US from the UK using the third party forwarding service Skypax. So I am $200 into this rear disc brake conversion at this point with the first major piece to the puzzle in hand. I will probably just slowly try to acquire the remaining pieces & parts every few months as time and funds allow...I gave the spindles to a buddy of mine from work that does a lot of auto work himself to see if he could clean them up by media blasting them and maybe powder coat them to match the rest of my flipped rear axle from modyourconnect.