Hot Rods Brakes again or still

40 ford deluxe. Stock 40 fronts. When hitting brakes feels like warped rotor. But drums. Any advice before switching to disk? I did find one of the adj washers wore pretty good on adj. But just one.

 

I’m guessing I could turn drums. Will I need to replace shoes?

 

has anyone suggested a sub-forum just for brake problems?

 

Drums out of round, hard spots in the casting, shoes not centered. How old are the drums?

 

Sure you can turn the drums. If they are original they don’t come separate from the hubs. Just tell the shop to go easy on them. The shoes shouldn’t be damaged from a warped drum.

 

Drums warped and need to be turned. IF they need to be replaced I would only go with good used or machined Lincoln drums from a place like MT brakes.......stay away from the repo drums. I bought 2 sets of drums from 2 different repo dealers over the course of 3 years and BOTH were out of round on the brake lathe (straight out of the box). There's only 1 or 2 places actually making the repo drums and being sold through lots of dealers.

If you feel the need to totally replace the drums I suggest using the whole front brakes off of a 1953-56 F100 (backing plates, hubs, drums). There's lots of posts on here about it and you would need different bearings (and seal).

 

Yes you can just turn the drums, but if the shoes do not fit the newly turned drums your brakes won't work as intended. When I learned to repair drum brakes, we fit the shoes to the drums and checked to see all adjustments were correct. If the shoes have fixed anchors, they must be adjusted so that the shoes contact the drums properly. Currently I see a lot of people switching to disc brakes because of a sloppy brake job on their drum brakes. Are disc brakes superior to drums? If you just look at fade resistance, then yes. If a drum brake will lock the wheel, to me, it's as good as any disc brake locking the same wheel.

 

Many speak of re-arcing the shoes on a belt sander after having drums turned. Of course wear proper PPE, don’t want to be inhaling the brake shoe dust.

 

I separated my hubs from the original drums on my manual adjust 40 brakes and bought some good quality drums from a HAMB vendor who sadly is no longer with us. Brought my new drums and old shoes to a local clutch and brake shop and they replaced the pads on my shoes and properly fit the shoes to the drums. Fifteen years later my brakes still work great. The properly arced shoes make shoe adjustment easy.

 

A lot of good info there. Thanks a bunch.