Technical 56 olds rear brakes get hot

I have a 56 olds

 

Is there push rod free play on the mastercylinder ?. There should be.

 

Yes.

 

A 56 Olds with manual brakes…… a first for me. I did a lot of brakes while working at a Sears Auto center in the early 60’s and never remember see one.

 

Here in the Very conservative Midwest I recall many cars of that vintage with manual brakes , steering & transmissions

 

Mine is all manual. No power brakes no power steering no power windows. Only options it has is automatic and 4 barrel carb.

 

Brake shoes have to have a slight drag on the drums if they are going to work right.
Adjust them up so that you can't turn the wheel and back them off 11 clicks. That has worked for me for 62 years since I was taught to do it that way in high school auto shop cl***. You may be looking for something wrong when there is nothing wrong.

You are still going to have the drums get hot if you drive it and use the brakes, that is a given as friction creates heat. They will be too hot to touch but shouldn't too hot.
The best thing I can suggest is to pull the drums off and take a serious look at the shoes and see if first there are signs of uneven contact. Going back to Johnny Gee's post look real close at the surface of the shoes to see if they have been dragging in one spot rather than having even contact.

 

This is what the shoe wear pattern looks like.
The primary shoe looks like contact st thr ends.
Secondary shoes looks like full contact.
Is the arc difference on thr primary enough to make them get hot and hard to adjust correctly?

 

I have a new master cylinder from kanter installed

 

I'm not sure what you are showing. You need to set the shoes in the drum, holding them against the drum at the middle of the shoe. You should be able to fit a 0.005 to 0.010 feeler blade at each end of the shoes. I never put shoes on a vehicle without checking the shoe to drum fit.

 

^ If they're off some, you can use some 80 grit inside the drum to shape them up. If they're off a lot, the paper won't work too well.

 

Trying to show the wear pattern.

I'll put them in the drum and feeler Guage them like you said.

 

The wear pattern on the secondary shoes looks even and the primary looks like it's not touching the drum in the middle.

 

Just so we are on the same page, primary shoe is in the front and has the short lining.

 

by the shiny spots it looks like the shoes are barely making contact. I wonder if the, non worn in rear brakes, are trying to do all the stopping. what do the front shoes look like?

 

100%

 

I don't have any pictures of the fronts at the moment. I believe they look good? I haven't had any problems with the front. When the brakes are cold it feels good, and I can lock the fronts pretty easy. Everything seems fine. After about 10 miles the rear brakes start to squeak, smell hot and are very hot to the touch. It becomes harder to lock the fronts and i feel the rears doing more stopping than they were cold. Fronts are warmish or cold, never hot.

 

I'm using chevy c/10 drums and 228 shoes from O'Reilly.

 

Had the front off today. This is what they look like.

 

Just sayin' since we haven't 'cooled it' yet.

Wether attached or not......
Rust inside the parking brake cable hook-up sleeve could give a problem.

 

Going to revisit my rear brakes in the Spring, wondering if you ever sorted things out.

 

Bumping this again.
A NIB set I have has all 4 shoes the same length as on the car, but 2 of the pads are slightly thicker than the other 2.
Factory lit mentions a primary & secondary shoe but how to tell the diff?
In addition, I have a set of 9.3 Olds backing plates & shoes, they have self adjusters so this would indicate 1963-64 & these have a short shoe & a long shoe.
Item of note:
With the parking brake very lightly applied, the wheels rotate forward with some effort but will not roll backwards.

 

Just went through this with a friends 63 Grand Prix. Shoes all the same size on the backs. Backs locking up, took the shoes back to the reliner and they cut the primary shoes down shorter to where they should be. Fixed the locking up issue.

 

Good God. I'd say that's brilliant but a ***** should be able to figure that out???
Never been accused of being the former.

 

Shoe’s are made that way now. Running a set now, no reverse lock up. GM car’s of that era required e brake to be readjusted as part of doing a rear brake job.

 

Another issue that happens is today’s shoes don’t center correctly up and down. That’s cause for shoe binding issues.

A home made tool simular to this but operates in the same way answers a lot unknowns like I just mentioned.

 

I can't help 'cause in the 80s when I narrowed the '56 Olds rear in my Willys. I also adapted Buick finned aluminum front brakes.
I followed the attached article except instead of making the 1/2" spacer, I just shortened the axle tube 1/2" less than the axle and machined the axles accordingly.