Brake shoes - which direction ?

my head hurts.


what will i find when i need to do a brake job?

 

What position were they in when you took them apart?

 

Early Ford hydraulic brakes with four fixed anchors are Lockheed brakes. Long shoe goes in front.

Boling Brothers brakes are Bendix-style brakes, with floating shoes, and an adjuster on the bottom. Long shoe goes in the rear.

Two different braking practices. Two different, and opposite shoe placements.

 

That is what I realized after I posted this. Thanks!

 

All new stuff. Never together.

 

Okay put this Thread back to sleep.

 

Can't really go by that, because whatever genius was in there last might have made a mistake.

Gimpy and others 'splained it well - if you actually look at what the Bendix "self energizing" design actually does it will make sense. The rear brake shoe does more work and wears faster than the front shoe by design. Most people probably envision the two brake shoes expanding out equally or applying the same braking action, they don't.

 

Makes sense. I didn't see if the parts were new or repairing older brakes.

 

If you are supposed to have a short and long shoe, why do some new sets have them all the saem size? Just bought Bosch 57 Chevy shoes, and all 4 were 'long' shoes. The ones on the car (installed in the 80's), were primary and secondary.

 

For all those that unequivocally state that the short shoe always goes in the front position (primary), here's a picture of some NOS Ford shoes. The short shoe is clearly marked secondary and is installed to the rear as many have pointed out correctly for '39-'48 applications. Early Jeeps are similar and the following is a good explanation.
"Where you have a non-servo type brake system with one brake cylinder and shoes that are both shoes anchored at the bottom (like on early MB/CJ), then you want the shoe with the long lining facing the front and the short lining facing the rear. With servo-type brakes that have one brake cylinder with shoes that are connected to each other at the bottom (usually with a star-wheel adjuster in between) and both shoes secured by a pin above the brake shoes, then you want the shoe with the short lining facing the front and the long lining facing the rear."

 

I install my brake shoes like I do my loafers, heel in the back and the toe in the front. Even the Italians do it this way!

 

I did hundreds of brake jobs in the 70's and some sets had different color lining for Primary and secondary. I'd ***ume a different friction coefficient.
I also found out that the shoes that I had the least complaints about were the cheap 10K miles shoes from the discount parts house a few blocks from where I worked that had common brake shoes in bins where you pulled out how ever many pairs of shoes of a certain size you needed. They didn't stop great from speed and didn't last all that long but on Old farts 15 year old cars in Waco they never brought complaints. They didn't make noise and they never pulled.

 

I have found factory shop manuals where the picture is inverted. Any Mercury Comet would have the short shoe facing the front of the car.

 

I graduated from high school in 1974. I took auto shop from 1971 through 1974, and worked at a high volume gas station that did a lot of brake jobs from 1972 on, and have been in the auto repair industry ever since.

I was told back then that anything Ford before 1949 was different. In all those years working in the auto industry, I have never laid hands on any original Ford that was older then the early 60s. The non-servo brakes were a highlight page in the automotive cl***es back then, we were told we probably would not ever see them in real life, since they were all pretty much gone by 1950. The non-servo brake information is probably not even a page in the instruction books any more. These days, any drum brakes are becoming rare.

Anything involving automotive factory installed things dated before the 2000 model year needs to be researched for information regarding the year and brand of vehicle involved, because most generic automotive information is not going to be accurate for the vehicle you are working on. Most of the guys here are going to be OK with generic info dating back into the late 1950s. Older then that will require information covering specific vehicles. Don't ***ume everyone here knows everything about all the old car quarks, but the odds are someone will know all about your car. This place is a great source of specific information, but we need to know what you are seeking information about. The make and model year are important here as well, along with the "Is what you are dealing with original to the car?" kind of questions.

 

I'm always a bit amused about the number of folks who seem so anxious to "update" to disk brakes on their older vehicles with self-energizing drum brakes. This system is actually an amazing bit of engineering and more than capable for most street driven cars and trucks. As proof of how well it works compare the pedal pressure required to stop the car moving forward, as opposed to stopping in reverse. The increased pedal pressure is not really an issue in reverse as you're seldom moving faster than a few miles per hour.

I suspect a lot of complaints about these systems are the result of shoddy, poorly done, budget brake repairs. Simply mixing up the primary and secondary shoes, or installing both short shoes (or long shoes) on the same side defeats the design and engineering built into a self-energizing system.

 

i had a ford van decades ago that some "genius" put a pair of secondaries on the right
front. even the guys at the parts store couldn't figure that one out!

 

I'm surprised you haven't seen or worked on any non-servo rear brakes, as they were very popular on most vehicles with diagonally split braking, before rear discs became standard. The big differences with "modern" non-servo designs are identical primary/secondary shoes and wheel cylinder pistons sizes.

 

I agree that older servo drums are fine on many street driven vehicles, as long as they are kept in good condition and adjustment. The big problems are finding quality/affordable replacement drums, shoes, wheel cylinders and hardware, and that is when an available disc conversion makes good sense, normally on the front.
The main issue with discs is the required the higher line pressure which will increase pedal efforts, but the improved braking makes the upgrade well worth the effort.

 

Goddamit BoB!

 

I worked on the cross diagonally split breaking on the 80s Mopars. Those shoes were still attached to each other with a brake adjuster, and held together with a spring connected to the adjuster arm and the other brake shoe and the bottom still "floated" on the shoe's center pins. As mentioned, both shoes were the same length. I probably had a dozen of those diagonal split braking front wheel drive Mopars.
By then, I was just pretty much working on my own stuff, which was only Mopar stuff. I have no idea what the other brands were doing, and I was no where near any automotive training.