There has been a bit written lately about restoring the original drum
brakes to like new working condition versus replacing them with disk
brakes.
In my case, it would have cost me about $750 to get new brake drums,
plus the cost of shoes, new wheel cylinders, etc. so I decided to
switch to disk brakes at a cost of about $1200. plus my labor. If I
had decided not to use the Cadillac parking brake caliper on the far
rear wheels I could have done it for about $200 or 300 less.
The advantages that I find are lack of brake fade when they are hot
and no adjustments are needed. I can also easily inspect them
without having to remove brake drums and if I need new pads, they
just slip in very easily without a lot of disassembly and readjusting
of wheel bearings, etc.
I do feel, though, that a good condition original brake system can
work extremely well. At the Durango rally, I had the chance to drive
Jim Ansett's 23 footer and his drum brakes will just about put you
through the windshield if you had a panic stop. He had done an
excellent rebuild on them and has a great maintenence program for his
GMC.
Yesterday, I got a "Black List" call from one of our fellow GMC
netter's, Henry Davis. Henry and Irene were in Albuquerque and he
had a problem with his brake warning light coming on and his pedal
height was not good.
Henry went over to Al Chernoff's house and I drove down from Santa
Fe. I brought a master cylinder with me but after we looked things
over we all decided to adjust the rear brakes first. We jacked up
the right side and adjusted those and found that the pedal height
improved some. We then started to do the same thing for the left
side, but when turning the rear wheel there was a very slight
metallic sound, almost unnoticeable, so we decided to pull that brake
drum. We found that one of the rivets was just starting to "kiss"
the brake drum. It had not scored the drum yet.
Interestingly, Henry had a shop adjust the brakes just before he left
California. The break in and theft of many of his things had put him
behind on getting ready for his trip so he decided to have an outside
shop do it instead of doing it himself. All four brakes were way out
of adjustment! It just goes to show that you can't trust any shop to
do the job right!!!!!
Another thing we found when the drum was removed was that something
didn't look right to me and then we determined that whoever did the
brakes last (not Henry) had reversed the primary and secondary shoes.
Big mistake!!
We got Henry back on the road with good brake pedal but he'll have to
pull the other three drums soon to see if those shoes are installed
correctly.
Just for information sake, some of you may be interested in the
following message that I sent to Henry this morning:
brakes to like new working condition versus replacing them with disk
brakes.
In my case, it would have cost me about $750 to get new brake drums,
plus the cost of shoes, new wheel cylinders, etc. so I decided to
switch to disk brakes at a cost of about $1200. plus my labor. If I
had decided not to use the Cadillac parking brake caliper on the far
rear wheels I could have done it for about $200 or 300 less.
The advantages that I find are lack of brake fade when they are hot
and no adjustments are needed. I can also easily inspect them
without having to remove brake drums and if I need new pads, they
just slip in very easily without a lot of disassembly and readjusting
of wheel bearings, etc.
I do feel, though, that a good condition original brake system can
work extremely well. At the Durango rally, I had the chance to drive
Jim Ansett's 23 footer and his drum brakes will just about put you
through the windshield if you had a panic stop. He had done an
excellent rebuild on them and has a great maintenence program for his
GMC.
Yesterday, I got a "Black List" call from one of our fellow GMC
netter's, Henry Davis. Henry and Irene were in Albuquerque and he
had a problem with his brake warning light coming on and his pedal
height was not good.
Henry went over to Al Chernoff's house and I drove down from Santa
Fe. I brought a master cylinder with me but after we looked things
over we all decided to adjust the rear brakes first. We jacked up
the right side and adjusted those and found that the pedal height
improved some. We then started to do the same thing for the left
side, but when turning the rear wheel there was a very slight
metallic sound, almost unnoticeable, so we decided to pull that brake
drum. We found that one of the rivets was just starting to "kiss"
the brake drum. It had not scored the drum yet.
Interestingly, Henry had a shop adjust the brakes just before he left
California. The break in and theft of many of his things had put him
behind on getting ready for his trip so he decided to have an outside
shop do it instead of doing it himself. All four brakes were way out
of adjustment! It just goes to show that you can't trust any shop to
do the job right!!!!!
Another thing we found when the drum was removed was that something
didn't look right to me and then we determined that whoever did the
brakes last (not Henry) had reversed the primary and secondary shoes.
Big mistake!!
We got Henry back on the road with good brake pedal but he'll have to
pull the other three drums soon to see if those shoes are installed
correctly.
Just for information sake, some of you may be interested in the
following message that I sent to Henry this morning:
