63 rear drum brakes

[Frank D.]

Doing my annual inspection of the original drum setup and the fronts checked out fine, the rear - not so much. Memory isn't so hot but I don't recall seeing a shoe crack like this (PS rear wheel trailing shoe). Just crappy off-shore materials maybe ?

The drums look fine and don't even appear to need "dressed up"..no "checking", no scorched/glazed spots, nada...plenty of "meat" still on them.

[Timothy B.]

Re: 63 rear drum brakes

Frank,

I would look for a NOS GM set and in the near future put them on, It probably won't hurt to leave it until you find a set. The size was probably used on quite a few models of the era.

Do you recall where the existing parts are from?

PS, did your wife throw you out of the garage again...

[Frank D.]

Re: 63 rear drum brakes

IIRC the brakes on the car are generic NAPA brakes I put on in 2016 before judging...and I would assume the shoes would have self-arced by now... I don't know of any outfit the "old school" arcs drum brakes any longer.

[Duke W.]

Re: 63 rear drum brakes

I wouldn't be too concerned about it, but if you detect any kind of problem with the rear brakes do another inspection. I've had semi-metallic disk pads loose chunks or material from race track hot lapping, but it had no discernible impact of performance, and I ran the pads to the usual 4/32" thickness before I replaced them. If only street driven I would let them wear to 2/32s, but the less material the hotter the brake fluid gets, so if tracking a car my replacement criterion is different.

The crack might be thermal related, but I didn't think you ever drove the car very hard. One thing that might be worth doing is taking a something like a dental curette and beveling the edges of the crack down to solid material to remove any loose flakes that might be pulled off in the future.

Duke

[Frank D.]

Re: 63 rear drum brakes

Those are not Harbor Freight jack stands in the picture!

And I always have a floor jack or sometimes two (under pressure) in a critical spot (as shown) even when using quality jack stands...even when I'm not sojourning under the car...