rear brake drums

[pflaming]

Got lucky. Went to a neighbor who is part of an old car/truck enthusiast club. I asked if he had a Mopar drum puller, just then a member walked up who has had mopars for 50 years, he loaned me his.

Wow, in one hour those drums came of with a bang. Suggestion: leave the nut on and let that drum come to that nut. I hate to think how far the drum and pull might have sailed.

The shoe linings are like new, the inside of the drums are smooth, no wear ridge and no rivit wear marks.

Question: can I use those brake shoes. Local mechanics say to rough them up keep going, no pun intended.

I am going to get this truck going yet, but I am not going to spend lots of money until I have driven it a while. The reality of driving an old truck may be quite different than one's imagination.

Oh! where does one get dies and taps for the lug nuts and the lug 'holes'. I need to clean mine out.

[Don Coatney]

where does one get dies and taps for the lug nuts and the lug 'holes'. I need to clean mine out.

In Fresno go to Motion Industries. When I lived there the salesman for them was a car guy. He had a 37 furd small block shiverlay deal. Unfortunally he passed on. He was a good guy. If you have no luck there do a web search for McMaster Carr. They can help.

[pflaming]

Don, Thank you, will do. I have a M-C catalogue so will look there too.

Took off the brake shoes, put air to one of the cylindars. The plunger came out. Still nice and wet, still sitting in brake fluid. The 'metal' part is a bright red, so someone must have put new brakes on this truck just before they parked it. The inside of the cylider is SMOOTH! I may be in luck. Got three more to open up.

THe front cylinders are frozen SHUT. Will need new cores there I'm sure.

[Rusty O'Toole]

If everything looks as good as you say I would clean things up, put them back together with cylinder kits and be happy.

The only problem with bonded linings is that the glue can fail when they are very old. I have only seen this on cars that were 30 or 40 years old with linings to match. It may be due to corrosion or dampness.

In your case it sounds like the brake shoes are not that old so they should be OK. No need to rough them up. If they need a clean up a shot of Brake Kleen spray and a wipe down with a clean rag should do it.

Now if they were soaked in grease or brake fluid you would have to replace them, I am talking about ordinary cleaning as part of a brake job.

The rubbing surface of the brake drums can be cleaned up with 100 sandpaper if they are rusty.

[pflaming]

Pictures of my rear brakes. A friend thought the cylinders might be on backwards. Is that possible. He referred to something called the servo brake shoe set up. ?????

Edited October 1, 2017 by pflaming

[TodFitch]

Pictures of my rear brakes. A friend thought the cylinders might be on backwards. Is that possible. He referred to something called the servo brake shoe set up. ?????

Looks like you have the Lockheed dual leading shoe setup. I haven't worked on one of those but from what I've read it seems like it would be hard to put it together backwards.

One major difference between the Lockheed brakes and Bendix brakes that are more familiar to people is that the Bendix system is to a certain extent self-energizing. Perhaps your friend was only familiar with that setup and the "servo" he was talking about was the self-energizing mechanism that your brakes don't have.

[pflaming]

"Looks like you have the Lockheed dual leading shoe setup"

So what is the Lockheed Setup? I went to search and found this....

" lockheed brakes have a pin that holds the shoe and the shoe pivots on this pin. This is called an eccentric pin. The pin is not equal in diameter. It is an offset pin. When turning this pin it moves the shoes in and out and also up and down to be concentric to the drum."

Now what is a Bendix Pin?

greg g has a great home made device to set brake shoes with good pictures. Very HELPFUL.

[Rusty O'Toole]

Lockheed and Bendix are 2 different brands of brakes.

The "servo effect" is a design feature of a certain type of brake. Where the 2 shoes are fastened together and allowed to "float" while one brake cylinder with 2 pistons pushes them apart.

What happens is, when you apply the brakes and the car is moving the brake drum applies pressure to one shoe, and the first shoe forces the other shoe against the drum harder. So a little pressure on the brake pedal = a lot of pressure on the brake shoe.

This has the pleasant effect of making the brakes work easier in normal driving. It has the slightly less pleasant effect of making the brakes grabby under severe braking.

The other type used by Chrysler on front brakes for years, has 2 cylinders 1 for each shoe. It has a certain amount of self servo action by wedging the shoes against the drum but is more "linear" and less grabby. They require more pressure on the pedal but work better and are easier to control especially under severe use.