'48 B1B front wheel/brakes

[SteveC1200]

The front passenger side wheel will not turn..(truck sat for 20 years)...I have reviewed the Technical Archives...have tried a brake drum puller..large hammer....WD40..etc...with no luck...is there a way to get the shoes to release by removing the nuts on the back of the support plate? (am at the point that using a Hellfire missle may be my next option)

[Young Ed]

Yes you can adjust the minor adjustments. That doesn't always help. After that try hitting the drum with a hammer to see if you can knock the shoes away from the drum. After sitting for so long the issue is usually that the wheel cylinder has gotten full of corrosion which expands the shoes out to the drum. You can also try removing the brake hose and the bleeder and see if you can release some of that pressure in the cylinder. Spray some good penetrating stuff in there -FYI wd40 doesn't count. You need liquid wrench, PB blaster, kroil, etc.

[ggdad1951]

stick the whole thing in a bucket with washing soda, hook up the battery charger and wait 3 days...

[JoelOkie]

(After backing the adjusters off) try putting an old wheel on and hit it from the back with a sledge, turning every once and again. Joel

[Rusty O'Toole]

Back off the adjustment and try hammering on the drum, hit the flat face do not hit the edge and you won't bend or warp it. You don't need to wail too hard the idea is to vibrate or jar things loose..

Or put an old wheel on and hit the area just outside the wheel bolts, then you can wail on it with a sledge hammer if you like.

Then set it down on the tires and try towing it back and forth a few times, or driving back and forth if you are lucky enough that it runs. It should come loose then.

Do not hit from the back you will damage something.

[Reg Evans]

Remove the cotter pins on the two lower major adjusting bolts and turn them towards the center of the axel. Then give it a good smack as described earlier.

[SteveC1200]

Thank you guys for the advice....PB Blaster and a few whacks and success!

(ps..I'm still working on the "washing soda and battery charger" solution...don't know if I should be using 6v or 12v)

[Young Ed]

I was using 12v for mine. Worked slowly but it worked. I only had 1 sacrifical piece in the water where as some of the directions tell you to have multiple. I also has copper wire attached to the piece which it says copper isnt good either.

[ggdad1951]

when I did mine I used 12V and as much sacrficial as I could as close as I could...worked much faster that way. As described it is a pretty much "line of sight" process, rust not directly in line with the sacrificial took forever to come off, or not at all.

[Young Ed]

Interesting so the bucket lid I had in there to ensure the pieces didn't touch probably shouldn't have been in there. Good to know I've got a couple pieces to do again. Any reason I can't reuse the water? It didn't get too nasty from the one piece I did last week.

[41/53dodges]

the baking soda in the water will just slowly degrade the more you use it. i used to run a tank like this 24/7 in the basement, changed the water only once a week. used a 12 volt charger with 15 amp capacity, but the current depends on what you are doing.

[ggdad1951]

be careful with ventilation...this process does produce hydrogen gas...

[Dennis_MN]

If you need replacement parts for the front brakes, I have a pail full of parts that I replaced when I did the disks on the front of my 1/2 ton.