Front and Rear Brakes, Drums

[ryanheacox]

Originally Posted by Mike1291

Okay, so based on the above I'm going to:

A) lubricate all the moving parts with white lithium grease
B) Bevel the end of each shoe liner, and check for consistent thickness
C) Check the drums for thickness
D) Adjust the parking brake and ensure it grabs both rear wheels evenly
E) Adjust the main brakes

Do you think it's really necessary to change the old equalizer/floater to the new style?

Sounds logical to me although I'd use wheel bearing grease instead of white lithium. I'm not sure if it's in the Les Andrews books, service manuals or just common practice but the parking brakes should drag at 2 clicks and lock at 3.


As for the equalizers, it's up to you. The new wedges and studs are available and not terribly expensive.

[Mike1291]

Thanks for all the advice. I'm going to do everything above. I might wait on doing the floaters until later since I doubt that I'd let it go down to the bare metal. I'm a stickler for maintenance and will have the drum off at least every 5k miles to repack the bearings. I can inspect things then.

[Mike1291]

Wanted to give an update. I decided to go with new front and rear drums & hubs. I'm going to reuse the existing bearings because they look good and will repack the fronts. When I get the drums I'm going to take off the shoes and go to a brake shop and have them arched.

After that I'll adjust my brakes so they're front-biased like nkaminar said and clean any grease off the tapered part like Katy said.