Short version: ONLY buy this kit if you REALLY desperately need rear disc brakes for some reason, and have incredible amounts of patience.

Long version: I'm new to the 4Runner/ off road aftermarket, but I really hope that this is not the status quo of aftermarket parts for this car.

Before I sound too negative, I did manage to get everything working and once I put a residual valve in in the rear everything will probably work great. But getting here was not easy.

First, you will have to cut your old drum backing plates out. I had a shop "press" one side off as per the instructions, and they ended up destroying my wheel bearing and ABS cog. This cost me about 250 bucks. The shop said this was unavoidable. So I went out and bought a Sawzall to remove the backing plate on the other side to avoid losing more money and time.

Second, there seems to be no 3rd-gen knowledge on the part of All Pro in regards to this kit. They couldn't tell me which caliper bracket went on which side. They also couldn't tell me the brake line size for a 3rd gen. I needed this (turned out to be M10x1.0) because I now have to install a residual valve (see next section).

Third, this kit does not come with a rear residual valve, which it desperately needs. Even with the system completely bled, it requires several pumps of the pedal to get full pressure on the rears. This results in a very DANGEROUS condition, especially when you do alot of towing, like me. I now have to source a residual valve and the correct adapters, do trial and error with 2psi and 10psi variants, and hopefully get everything in balance correctly.

Fourth, the brake lines supplied were within a few millimeters of not being long enough, requiring an excruciating amount of time and brake fluid trying to install them. If they were about an inch longer on either side, it would have been a breeze. The reason I had this problem was I mounted the calipers facing forwards on both sides, not backwards. All Pro said they could be mounted either way. I mounted them forward because otherwise the ABS sensor had to be removed. With them mounted forward, there was absolutely no slack with the brake lines.

Fifth, both caliper brackets had to be re-drilled in order to fit on the axle. The holes did not quite line up with the three bolts that they use for mounting to the axle. This is unacceptable. There are modern machine shop methods that can assure quality control to prevent this. This took about another two hours of fiddling with them and eventually giving up and going to buy a drill bit that was big enough and strong enough to cut through the steel brackets.

All in all, everything will probably be fine in the end once I sort out the residual valve. However, there were unnecessary headaches and time stoppages with this kit. Once you get everything together, the fit with the pads/calipers/rotors is very nice and I'm sure there will be increased braking performance, but I get the idea that 3rd gens were not considered very much in designing this kit. Every time I called to ask about something 3rd-gen related, I didn't get a particularly helpful or knowledgable answer. If this kit will work on these cars (as it states on the website) I feel that there should be equal support and knowledge as there is for the old models.

Would I do it again? No. I do not recommend it.

Patrick

Nice write up Patrick. This will probably just reinforce the why even bother thought, when the drums work just fine.
Have you done the Tundra brake upgrade on the front too?

i will also chime in and agree that this kit is not worth the box its' shipped in... about 3 years ago i got this kit and it sure seemed like i was the FIRST person to order it for a 3rd gen. they had no information for me, multiple parts were wrong and they also forgot to mention that it would take away my ebrake and that i wouldnt need the 100$+ LC master cylinder. so after a couple of days of trying to get this to work, i gave up and took it to my local shop. they spent another couple days on it...

i would not recommend this kit to anyone either, unless they wanted the ease of cleaning disc brakes after they went offroading... that was the main reason i did it. now if i could only figure out how to make my ebrake work again i think i could get over all this and be happy with the kit.

Hey, thanks for the open review. I just caught it on a Google alert. I have been looking for a good kit and found the all pro, but wasn't sure due to no e-brake. This settled it, I think I will try something else.
As far as getting a decent response to parts dealers, I seem to get none, so don't feel you are alone. NO ONE seems to want to answer questions concerning 3rd gen 4runners.
Maybe you can answer this- why not use an 03 set of rear discs, or even the whole rear axle. Seems like a lot less work to replace the axle from a wreaked 03 than to change just the brakes. Any help would be great. Hope the all pro worked out for you.

X2
I used the sky manufacturing kit ($225)with the same results I felt like this has never been done before. I have still not perfected my set up yet but with the master cylinder from a 76 blazer 1 1/8th" bore ($40) they are working very well on road now I need to try them out in the dirt, mud, snow, wet conditions.

I had all my brake lines custom made for this project so I knew they wold work. ($140)

I also decided to go with all knew wheel bearings and seals in the rear , after all its either destroy your rear drum back plates or press them off. So after smashing my finger and breaking my 12 ton press ($20 to fix) I took the axles to 2 different shops that both said take them to the dealer. reluctantly I did, and what an experience. Service was great and all but ($852)to press off and then on all new bearings seal retainers and yes ABS sensor is non reusable. Of coarse Toyota will only use Toyota parts.

I might mention that the kit came with cheap grade 5 hard ware from home depot. Theirs know way I was mounting brakes with this stuff so went and got 10.9 all metric hardware ($20) and extra washers as they don't tell you to make this work you have to space the caliper mounts out by 2 washers on all 3 bolts.

I also used the calipers from 78-85 Cadillac Eldorado and carbon metallic pads from kregon ($270) this leaves me with the option of finding someone that can make me some custom E-brake cables and still have functioning e-brake($???).

At this point $1500.

Add in the brake fluid money for your time and the e-brake cables and you got your self Tundra front upgrade and a bad a$$ Shrock works front bumper.

IMO FORGET ABOUT REAR DISC IN THIS FASHION.

Maybe better to swap out rear axle from 4th gen. but even then you will still have all the master cylinder and proportioning valve issues to work out.

Never looked into any of the kits offered but this thread may help some of you out.

How to: Supra MA70 rear discs to Hilux - Toymods Car Club

I wish the conversion was as easy as the disc conversion I did on my 1st gen pathfinder XE before I converted to 4Runner.
The conversion was easy since I only have to get the axle shaft with the disc set up from the Pathfinder SE....easy bolt on.
Wish Toyota made a disc set up for this rear end, like the pathfinder, or is there a set up that I can directly bolt on and a I just dont know about it?

do a search over on totatech, I think someone already did the trial and error to figure out what PSI valve is the best

Hey just wanted to check in and see if you still regret the conversion kit.
I need new drum brakes on my 99 4runner so I'm thinking of doing this conversion.

Rear Disk Brake Conversion Pt 1

check this out