A familiar squeal jogged my memory and reminded me of the four or five times I replaced calipers on my last Gen 1 due to the pistons freezing and rotors warping. The brakes were great when I got the Monte a month ago, but warped almost instantly and now it seems that the driver's side front caliper is locking up.

What I'm mostly wondering is a) how easy is the Gen 2 upgrade -- it sounded pretty "bolt on" from the instructions I read, and b) do these calipers last longer in addition to providing more stopping power?

I'd probably buy new loaded calipers from NAPA and new rotors while I'm at it. Any particular brand to recommend? I know cheap rotors can warp pretty easily.

It's pretty simple to do it. Gotta get the brackets along with the caliper. A lotta people use the Gen II dust shields. I could never find them so I trimmed mine to the match the caliper with a air cut-off tool. I used the 3.0 calipers and the matching rotors on both of mine. You have to use shorter bolts then the stock Gen I's for mounting the hubs to the Gen II rotors.
The first time I kept the Gen I's rotors and turned them. I cam home hauling my wood trailer and the first time I hit the brakes, warped the rotors. After that, went the Gen II's. I like the stopping power. No more white knuckle stopping with the trailer fully loaded (which is always WAY too much <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />).

X2 on the Gen 2 upgrade. I grabbed the whole set-up off a junker and it was definitely impressive with the 35's. Felt a whole lot better. Do it!

I should, I just know that there is no hope of finding a junkyard set locally (which would probably be frozen, anyway) so I'm having to do all new parts. Kind of expensive, but if it saves me from doing rotors and calipers every 5-10k it is worth it, I guess.

Is this universal for the Gen 1 trucks? I was reading up on it and it seemed that there were differences based on the truck having a 4cyl or a V6 engine.

From what I recall of doing brakes on my 4 cyl Gen I and my last V6 LWB Gen II, the brakes were basically the same, if not identical.

Rear Gen I brakes are the same diameter but use different wheel cylinders. The 4-cyl front rotors have a smaller diameter than the 0.06" larger V6 rotors. The calipers are different, too.

Gen II rotors and calipers are again different.

I put new Rotors on the montero before I started to use it and drove more then 40K on them. With a good deal of heavy hulling and using a trailer as well. The big key is don't get cheap rotors!!! With that said the new 97 montero brakes feel so much better then the 1gens.

Yes do the gen 2 upgrade. Be sure to upgrade to gen2 rotors, there is a difference in the thickness and if you use the gen 1 rotors you run the risk of loosing a pad on the road and that could mean big trouble.....don't ask how I know...

So on my 4cyl could I grab everything from a 2nd gen truck and swap it in? Don't mean to hijack the thread, sorry.