In Brief

All the components necessary to properly connect to your existing braking system and properly proportion rear disc brakes.

Installation

Spidertrax Brake Line Kits have a simple, straight-forward installation that saves lots of fabrication work. Samurai owners having trucks with split diagonal braking will have an extra few steps to perform in order to convert to split front-to-rear braking. Spidertrax' usual clear, detailed instructions are provided.

The most difficult part of installation has nothing to do with the design of this kit at all. Bleeding the brakes properly is always a pain in the neck.

Warning: Whether you fab your own lines or use those available from Spidertrax, you must install a proportioning valve and set it properly for rear disc brakes. Failure to do so may imperil your life and the lives of others. The stock proportioning valve is not sufficient for this conversion. If you have any doubt about this portion of the installation, consult a professional brake shop.

Further installation details and additional pics are in the Tech section.

Impressions

While not strictly necessary to complete the conversion to rear disc brakes using Spidertrax Rear Disc Brake Kit, the time saved through the use of their Brake Line Kits makes them entirely worth while. I'd rather be wheeling than fabricating a bunch of rigid brake lines and double flaring all the connections.

With Spidertrax' Brake Line Kits, you specify the one kit required for your vehicle, remove the existing lines, clip the new rigid lines in place where the old ones were, install and set the proportioning valve, connect up the rear lines, bleed the brakes and off you go.

Specification of the right kit is dirt-simple. Just look under the rear of your truck and determine whether you have one flex-line or two coming down to the rear axle. Tell your Spidertrax distributor-of-choice which it is when you order and the right kit for a simple connect-it-up installation is on its way.

All the parts in my kit were well-made, of proper length and having all the necessary bends. The proportioning valve with its associated tubing fits right on the lines in front of your brake fluid reservoir. Don't forget (as I initially did) to make sure that the fittings on the inlet and outlet of the proportioning valve are properly tightened, as well as all the brake line flare nuts. It wasn't until I had someone come help while I was bleeding the brakes that I found the reason I wasn't getting proper pedal pressure--a fine spray of brake fluid exiting between the fitting and proportioning valve body on the outlet side.

On my truck, using stock springs and shackles, a Petroworks Spring Over Axle conversion and 31x11.50 Goodyear MTs, the default initial settings specified by Spidertrax resulted in correct proportioning. Your truck may well be different, depending on your suspension and tire configuration and the distribution of weight from various accessories. Make sure that you perform the testing procedures given by Spidertrax after setting your proportioning valve.

The only things that could be called 'missing' in this kit are some sort of mounting tabs at the rear axles for the connection between the flex lines from the calipers and the new rigid lines. Given the many combinations of rear axles and suspensions--along with the desire to keep this kit 'bolt in'--it's not hard at all to see why Spidertrax avoided a set of mostly unnecessary mounts that would have to have been welded in place. As there's no stress on the fittings involved, provision of mounting tabs would have been solely a concession to 'keeping things neat'. Those of you that want to add mounting tabs should have no problem in adapting existing Samurai mounting tabs or in fabricating your own.

These kits are well worth the investment (as a time-saver alone) in the conversion of your Samurai to rear discs. Spidertrax Brake Line Kits are available through their distributors for US$99.00.

--Scott Gomez