Front brake shoes

So I was surfing the net and came across a off road side with a influence on older jeeps. Saw this discussion on brake shoes with a argument for what shoe faces the front of the car either the short one or the long one. I was always taught the short one faces the front of the car. After seeing this discussion and this person's ****ogy I am now questioning if this is true or not. Here is quoted text I am referring to and lets see what you guys think.

Also i just went to the cj3b site and got this info if any one is interested!!
"It is very simple once it is explained correctly. Your primary brake
shoe(forward motion stopping) will be the larger of the two shoes in a
two-shoe drum brake. The shoes in the type brake used in the Willys are
pinned at the bottom so as to allow hinging and no rotation. They are
actuated at the top by a hydraulic cylinder which pivots the shoe into
the rotating drum. The forward rotation of the drum will have a
tendency to pull(if properly adjusted, and this is very important) the
shoe into the drum thereby multiplying the force being applied.
However, this force stops at the pivot pin at the bottom of the shoe,
making the forward shoe the primary shoe, which needs to be the longest
for proper distubution of braking forces as well as wear. Forward
motion of the vehicle generally uses the brakes much more often than
rearward motion of the vehicle. The front shoe then, needs to stand up
to more use. It is the long one. Keep in mind that the
return/retaining springs are of different tensions and need to be good
and installed in the correct order. They are color coded.
These brakes are very simple and were cheap to produce and mostly
reflect the technology of the times. They work good if kept installed
correctly, adjusted properly, and well maintained. They were, however,
designed to slow/stop a light vehicle from relative slow speeds as
determined by today's standards. In the case of the MB and GPW and
early CJ's, you are looking at a 3000 lb loaded vehicle moving at no
more than probably 45 mph in probably soft or at least unpaved terrain.
The servo type brakes(following shoe is primary shoe) and or larger
diameter drums and shoes would be a good upgrade for use in today's
traffic and speed, if you have the gears to get above 45 mph. Somewhere
in the late fifties or early sixties, Kaiser did just that. They were
building heavier jeeps going faster."

(quoted from another site names withheld to protect the innocent.)

 

A load of ****. The reason for the short/long shoe is to EQUALIZE the pressure due to the tendency of one to be 'pulled' to the drum and the other one to be 'pushed' away from the drum when pressure is applied. If you switch them around, over time, one will wear more than the other one.

 

Long is always front on our stuff

 

I see nothing wrong with the description here. Fundamentally it comes down to two styles of drum brakes:

1) Shoes actuated by piston at one end (usually the top) and anchored at the other end.
2) Shoes actuated by piston at one end and not anchored at the other but joined to the other by a floating link.

Category 1) the lead shoe (the long one) is mounted to the front side of the backing plate. The trail shoe on the rear side.
Category 2) the lead shoe (long one) becomes the rear one due to the floating link arrangment. Short one at the front.

 

And let me add a third. My 56 New Yorker has dual brake cylinders on each front wheel backing plate, one for the front shoe and one for the rear. The linings are the same length on both shoes.

 

Small Shoe FRONT, large shoe BACK, ask Bendix!!

 

I was about to amend my post to qualify my statement that these categories are only for single cylinder twin piston brakes.

What you have described is a twin leading shoe arrangement which has two separate cylinders.

 

That only applies to BENDIX style brakes !

 

the post from the other forum is referring to a non-self energizing brake system. So the post is in fact correct, the lead shoe should be the longer one.

HOWEVER, In a self energizing system, the front shoe should always be the short shoe. Due to the lead shoe exerting forces on the rear shoe.

 

Big back little front

 

This is correct info.....

 

This is what I thought as well since the pressure on the back shoe is more surface to the drum and there for does most of the braking. The short shoe does the initial breaking but then pushes back shoe. Now what if we are wrong. could be that most of the inertia is at the front of the car under hard breaking and therefor the rotating m*** would end up on the front part of the drum so then you would think the large shoe would do most of the breaking and the rear shoe would make up the difference of the front shoe therefore making it shorter.