Well I have everything to do the conversion, actualy the whole rear end, suspension and whatnot from my old part car ('85 GL-10 turbosedan) and I'm going to be doing the rear disc conversion on it. I've read up on it a few times but maybe there's some secrets to it that I don't know. I'm going to be doing this afternoon since I have to bleed the brakes anyways so why not? Seems pretty straight forward.

No you won't have any problems. It is pretty straight forward. I did it a while back on my 78 Brat. I was surprised how easy it went. So I can only imagine it will be even easier on a ea81 car. Good luck!

Make sure to put the bolts in the rite order, one bolt is just a wee bit longer and will rub the rotor.

 

After it's all installed check for bolt clearance from the rotor.

I made this mistake and messed up my roter a little bit.

 

~CHIM~

the biggest thing you can do to help yourself out when removing old brake parts from the hub is to have a large wire brush and some PB blaster handy to clean the hub for the removal of the old drum brake crap and the installation of the new backing plates.

I'm with Andy, the hardest part is removing the backing plate. Cleaning the rust and crud off the hub will help a lot to make that easier.

well I got some PB blaster but I do have air tools, mwahahaha. Anyways, I got the whole rear end like I said and I'll jack the car up and swap it all over as it comes off. Good thing is that my sister's boyfriend is going to help me on it.

One thing that helped me a TON is a 10mm pipe/half closed wrench...I could never get enough torque on a regular open-end wrench to get the brake line unconnected (ya know, where the hardline comes together with the softline).

hey i'm soon going to be doing this on my 79 brat... the backing plates are SO hard to get off... i still have the rear suspension from the rx sitting under a tarp waiting for me to pound the poop outa it...

 

but while pounding i kinda, may have bent the muck outa that sheetmetal plate (it was super rusty anywho) and i was wondering if its important to have on there... i was planning to just cut it off or bang it back into a decent shape... its just a dust shield right? should i be worried about removing it? are my brakes gonna stop working?!?

take a 4 lb hammer to the backing plates, and they come right off.

i have never even had to bleed the brakes after doing the rear disc conversion. its easier than changing the damn shoes on the drum brakes.

wow so I got done doing the conversion about 2 hours ago but I bled the brakes and wow, what a difference. They needed to be bled before this swap so I didn't mind bleeding them. This this stops on a friggin dime now, I'm very impressed! No more grinding coming from the rear. Now its time to take care of the sloppy shifter syndrome it has. I've read up on what the problem is but I think a welder will do the trick;)

I went to Vancouver yesterday to pick up the hatch from Russ, and during the test drive, when I stopped it I thought there was something wrong with the brakes, until I remembered that it hadn't been converted yet