Rear disc swap another way?

Well a friend of mine bought a used rear disc swap and his father was looking at the backing plate and stuff like that and was wondering if you couldnt just switch that out instead of switching out the whole trailing arm. there are 3 star bolts in the back along with a large nut and same goes for the rear drum would this work ?? I need to know asap since if not hes gonna be paying money for alot of stuff......