Asbestos Danger in Brake linings?

[Patrick L.]

My family started an auto repair business[Studebaker and Ford] in 1918 and through out most of the following years we performed tens of thousands of brake and clutch replacements.. I've done a thousand myself and it was common place to blow the crap from the drums and backing plates and dive into the cloud and get busy.. Asbestos was a miracle product back in the day and was used for almost everything,,we used to mix it up and slop it on the heat/steam pipes,, then knock it off with hammers 30 years later.. No one wore masks.. Of course then almost everyone smoked, used lead for body filler,sprayed paint without any protection,and cleaned parts with carbon-tet.. No one wore seat-belts then either and we had a large towing service and I've pulled more GM steering columns out of peoples chests than I care to think about.. So, have we become any smarter over the years,, time will tell..

[Special Coupe Frank]

Speaking as someone who has lived with Asthma since child-hood, why take chances ?

ANY concetrated dust can be harmful to your lungs: wood dust, plaster, Portland Cement, Flour ( yes, the baking kind ), asbestos, paint (spray mist or sanding dust ), iron oxide from wire-wheeling rusty stuff...

Asbestos is particularly harmful because its molecular structure causes it to occur in long strands kind of bunched together ( somewhat like string-cheese); the fibers tend to split apart into smaller and smaller strand and fragments, and when in the lungs, embed themselves in the bronchial passages. Unable to be expelled, the lungs form scar-tissue around the fibers, and the gradually restricts the air-passages, reducing your lung capacity.

I'm not trying to defend liability lawyers, but I've had enough relatives DIE from asbestosis (as they used to call it) to know that it's NOT a myth.

Why take chances ? Wear a mask if you're going to generate dust.

My 1940's Ammco brake-shoe grinder has a primitive dust collection system on it...

I hate wearing the paper masks and the better filter mask/"respirator".

But even more, I hate contending with bronchitis for a couple weeks because I was generating lots of dust (doesn't matter what kind) and didn't wear a mask.

It's your life and your body, but you only get one.... take care of it !

[Dennis Pereira]

Here in the foothills of ca we have massive belts of serpentine rock that contains asbestos It was crushed and used as road base and thanks to lawyers and scare tactics and your tax dollars from the super funds a lot of private roads were paved for free to seal the serpentine rock that made little or no visible dust we now use limestone and there's plenty of dust. And its still legal to use serpentine as a base.

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Yea Tom. And I remember when TV was free. And it was considered 'trashy' for professionals to advertise on the tube. Made 'em look desperate.

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