I'm running '39 wide five wheels and drums on my '32 3w, and I've begun asking around my area mechanics if anyone can turn the rear drums. Everyone so far seems able to turn the front drums, but the rears pose a problem because the typical brake lathe shaft won't fit through the small tapered hole of the rear drum. Buying new drums isn't an option as far as I know since it's only the '40 up drums being repopped. Can anyone post a pic of the proper tooling required to chuck up a rear drum? I could probably machine something to do the job if I could see what it looks like. Thank you in advance.
I got my '40s rear drums to fit on a brake lathe at work. I was not cutting but just sanding down the rust. If I have small runout, I'm not going to try chasing it. Try finding a pair when you over cut the drums. Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!
Any machine shop (commercial, not automotive) worthy of the name could figure a way to chuck it in a lathe for turning. But, I would also heed Telecustom's advice about taking care to not turn excessively.
I may be wrong, been awhile since I ran a brake lathe, but the vw guys have the same problem on their rear drums, so you might try and find who cuts those.
I'm sure I am going to catch hell for this, but here goes. Depending on how bad they are, they can somewhat be turned by the brake shoes on the car with normal driving. I would not attempt this on the front or with badly worn drums or with drums that are out of round or with a lot of edge ridge. But the rear brakes do about 40% or less of the stopping and new shoes ride on the high spots and ware them first. Might take a couple of sets of shoe linings, but they are going to work on the high spots and leave the low areas mostly untouched. As hard a rear drums are to come by I would think a little about machining away any of what is left. I know this is not how it is done, but unless you have a good source for rear drums, what are you going to do?
Not sure if all of them are the same' but on my kid's, the arbor is retained in the shaft with a bolt and and is piloted by two tapers. Here is a picture that shows the two tapers on the uninstalled arbor.
My experience, on beater cars, has been the while the new linings wear to match the drums; the drums never improved and usually continued to get worse.
The skinny arbor shown above is for foreign car front wheel drive rotors and you should be able to find at an older brake shop that doesn't try to cheat the customer by refusing to turn the still turnable rotors. The arbor is not hard to change but the original arbor has an index mark that should be matched for re-installation. A long bolt from the back holds it on.
Tinman, I am not sure where in B.C. you are, but if you are in the lower mainland, call Jay at Valley Alignment in Langley 604-530-5612. He has the smaller lathe arbour to machine those drums. He lent it to me so I could do mine at my shop but if you take the drums to him he will do it for you. Hope that helps.
for the ammco the adapter was often reffered to as the Honda adapter. How hard to change? 5 minutes top. I had one in my POWER TUNE UP specialty shop in the 70s and was the only one in town with it so it paid for itself. That said a sharp lad with a big lathe could figure something out fairly quicky as well. Like using it mounted to an old axle chucked in the lathe with a oiled dead centre on the rear and the lathe carriage closer to the chuck. The old Dodges like my 63 even also presented the same problem so there are machines around that will do them. Some of the samller like the Van Norman for small shops might be the ticket as is. don
I would be more than happy to chuck them up in my lathe and turn them for you. just enough to clean them up. But your to far away to bring them to me. If you pay for the round trip postage it could be a winner. Brian
When I was hanging around the corner gas station; we used to send Ford rear hubs down the street to AMI for turning, at that time we hadn't yet been blessed with either foreign car front wheel drive rotors or Hondas. Wonder what they called the tooling at that time.
Just a thought what about gluing some sand paper to a set of brake shoes and run the car on some jack stands.
I cut them. My brake lathe is set up for the smaller arbor. You also need the adapter that fits in the wheel bearing and not a cone to get a true cut
Thank you all the detailed replies. I'm going to do some checking to see if any local shops are set up for Hondas and such. Failing that, I may make an attempt to make a fixture for my lathe using a stubby chunk of original axle. At least now I have the benefit of knowing what's out there.
Hey Tin man If your in vancouver go to Canadian tire on logheed hyw and king edward they have the right arbor for the lathe. I worked there for years and still go there and use the lathe on my own drums. Talk to Jock or Anthony at the front counter, they charge 30 bucks a drum and tell them Brad says you can do it he does it all the time. Just encase the mechanic doesn't feel like changing the arbour and says he cant do it, they can be lazy sometimes. lol
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