Brake shoe thickness?

[bgaidan]

Does anyone know what the thickness of the brake shoe lining is supposed to be?


I had all of mine re-lined by a shop in Ft. Worth...about 2 years ago. Now that I've moved 3 times and finally have a shop again, I'm trying to put everything back together so I can drive this girl.


New cylinders are installed and new lines were bent and plumbed. Put the shoes on and found that I can get the drums over the liner. Hammering one on left the drum seized and required hammering back off. I'm fairly certain the lining they used is too thick....unless the new cylinders are too tall. (Note: I've seen the thread about having to grind the rear cylinders, but I'm only dealing with the fronts at the moment. I'm sure I'll have the same problem with the rears.


Assuming they are too thick, I'll probably pick up a spindle sander and make a jig to shave a little thickness off of them.

[RiverPatrol]

According to the early service manual, the thickness should be 6.8 mm ( 0.268 in ).

[bgaidan]

Nacho gracias!


I'll measure when I get home. From memory, I'm thinking what they used was probably closer to 3/8". Maybe a good excuse to go by a little spindle sander!

[bgaidan]

Well, as I suspected, the lining they installed is measuring about 9.7mm (.38"). The problem I'm seeing is that if I can grind it down to the property thickness, I'm going to be getting dangerously close to the rivets. Some of them would have maybe 1/16" of meat over them and others may only have a few thousandths.

Now I'm looking at buying a brake riveting tool...which it looks like I can pick up for $35 or so. Which now has me wondering if I should just go ahead and order some new liner while I'm at it and start fresh.

[RiverPatrol]

You had the shoes relined and they riveted them? I thought they stopped doing that eons ago. When I've had shoes relined they're glued.

[bgaidan]

Yep, riveted. I'm guessing they're glued too. They did a lot of industrial and big truck stuff. They may have gone a little overboard for a Patrol!

The heads of the rivets are stamped "8.8" which makes me think they're steel and not brass tube rivets too. I need to do a grind test to make sure.

I can't remember the name of the shop, but it was actually a place that was listed on the old site and happened to be about 15 minutes from my old house. They did nice work...I just didn't think to specify the thickness of the liner I needed, I guess.