Like some of youses, I have a couple of drum brake unibody cars that I would really like to keep the drum brakes on. Lighter weight, unaffected by big cams, more room for pent-roofs!

But, how does ya create some whoa behind some pimple-faced escapee from a juvenile detention center who stabs his WRX binders like he's stomping a roach that's dragging off his last quaalude?

http://praisedynobrake.com/bib.htm

http://praisedynobrake.com/stage-iii.htm

If anybody's using this stuff, please gimme feedback.

With drums it's simple-you can't.If you're behind him,you now have a Subaru hood ornament.

And ceramic shoes for the street is not the best of ideas.

that stuff looks like some high priced razzle dazzle to me. Finned drums aren't a new invention and I've found the best stopping is with a cheap set of shoes with some sort of cardboard lining. May not last long but they hold my car in the burnout box and get me stopped before I hit something at the other end.

When we were doing brakes in the 60's, my buddies and I found that the cheapest brake shoes worked the best. They didn't last long, but they really stopped well. But the shoes also contained asbestos which IMO still works the very best. We got so we could do a front brake replacement in 10 minutes including rearcing the shoes.

Rich Bailey
Tucson, AZ
62 tbird, 90% done with 90% left to do
66 tbird convt w/428 (stored since 1982)

an article that someone posted from back in the day that talked about drilling the drums. was suppose to help with cooling in addition to keeping the brakes dry. anyone here actually done this?

I don't see why disc brakes are in the way of the valve covers... unless this FE is in a go cart. You might be thinking of a power brake booster...the devil's work. You can run manual discs, in fact i'd question your manhood if you needed power assist.

I know a guy that's used the silly expensive Praise-the-drums setup and it stops well. But then again i've had to work on a 60 Cad that would skid with a feather touch with booster disconnected because it had too-soft brake lining material. It needed harder linings to even be controllable.

I say ask the oldest coot you can find at the parts store and see if there is a choice of brake shoes and get the softest ones. If they don't understand find a brake rebuilder that does relining themselves.

Back in the late fifties and sixties when I was doing brakes and relining shoes there was a lining called Calibloc (I think) that worked very good on drum cars. Cost of lining was fifty cents per shoe, four bucks for four wheels. Could do a Falcon including the wheel cylinders in an hour. Multiply by six now. Good luck.

Back in the late fifties and sixties when I was doing brakes and relining shoes there was a lining called Calibloc (I think) that worked very good on drum cars. Cost of lining was fifty cents per shoe, four bucks for four wheels. Could do a Falcon including the wheel cylinders in an hour. Multiply by six now. Good luck.

Yes, I was referring to the booster, which does not like high valve covers in the late 60's/early 70's intermediate cars. And while you are right to question the manhood of anyone needing power assist, I must also question the suggestion of manual discs. I would feel cheated, being deprived of the thrills and exhilaration of manipulating my car with drums drenched from our typical no-warning, flash-flooding, Arizona monsoons. The fact that my emergency brake actually deploys an anchor should speak volumes about my devil-may-care masculinity.

One could argue that it takes more of a man to set his car up so that the fair sex can also drive the thing

Oh sure, I can hear the conversation now:

FElony: "Wanna drive my machine, baby?"

Miss Demeanor: "Groovy! Let's check it out. Hey, how come the front seats are one piece?"

FElony: "It's called a bench seat, sweetness. I put that in there just for you [cough] so you can perch your pretty little bunsies closer to me. OK, now pump the pedal twice and turn the key."

Miss Demeanor: "Oh my goshkins! How come it's so loud in here?"

FElony: "I left the sound deadener out. Useless weight. Now let's pull it out to the street, kittycakes."

Miss Demeanor: "Darn it, I can't turn the wheel, and the brake pedal doesn't work."

FElony: "No power assist. There's a reason "manual" begins with MAN, honeynips."

Miss Demeanor: "OK, tough guy, where do I plug my new toy in?"

FElony: "What? Don't tell me you went through another pack of C cell Energizers!"

Miss Demeanor: "Not that toy, silly. My iPod."

FElony: "Sorry, cuddles, no sound system. Dead weight, just like the heater and A/C system. Besides, who needs speakers when you have right and left-hand Dynomax mufflers?"

Miss Demeanor: "FElony, you are a selfish, good-for-nothing, power-crazed, son of a beach macho pig!"

FElony: "Well, if you're gonna get into foreplay, let's just check out the back seat instead..."

She'd just smash it up or burn out the clutch anyways... better you drive it.

IIRC, in the early 60's some GM cars like Pontiac were equipped with aluminum drums that had a pressed-in iron liner. Often, the aluminum was drilled for cooling holes although I doubt this was very effective. Much better was the effort by the Corvette racers (this dating back into the mid-50's I've read) to cut away virtually all of the backing plate and adding (for certain races) flexible tubes to duct cool air into the brakes.

The fins on the drums depicted are nothing new and IMHO really don't add much to cooling. The cost of the drum kit too is likely no cheaper than a good disc brake swap kit as offered by many suppliers. While I can appreciate authenticity, that goes out my window, at least, compared to safety. That and the old single reservoir master brake cylinders!

I agree with the others here who claim the best shoes were the cheapest, so to speak. A soft, asbestos-laden brake shoe was best for 'grab' and stopping at the expense of longevity. I do believe that in drum shoes, at least, the asbestos was key to pretty fair braking then.....unless one had many tight turns!

Can't agree though about the light weight of drum brakes. Perhaps if one compares the OEM drums to an OEM cast iron Ford rotor and hat. But, if one runs one of the many aftermarket disc setups, you can easily save many pounds over a OEM Ford drum setup, hands down. Have Baer Brakes' 13.2" aluminum hub/steel rotor, PBR dual puck hat front disc setup on my '70 Stang. It was 35 lbs PER SIDE lighter than the OEM Ford disc brake setup! That and about twice as powerful stopping!

I'd either live with the poor braking of all 4-wheel drum vehicles today (and drive appropriately, like a grandpa!) or dump that junk and switch to a modern front or even 4-wheel disc setup. Drums just can't compete anymore.

Do you have any info/links on this Brake Setup?

http://www.baer.com/products/complete/track.php

My fronts are about 13 years old now as installed when I re-did the car. My 13.2's rotors are still available but it looks like Baer now has settled on 13.0" as a standard size. Great brakes and one of the best things on the car all these years later!

I have no experience with the PDB parts, but if you are looking to vastly improve the performance of an all drum car, look no further than Porterfields R4-S carbon shoes.

There is no real way to describe the difference in fade resistance - its like night and day.

We have had an 4 wheel Drum 289 Mustang on the Hockenheim F1 track and with super premium (semi metallic) shoes it would take just a few corners to fade the brakes to virtual non existance.

With the Porterfield you could al least drive several laps, before a gradual fade started.

And that was with their R4-S like Street shoes. They also have other more race oriented lining materials.

Our Rallye 68 Fairlane is equiped with the same pads & shoes and we have braked the the hell out of that setup and are extremely satisfied. Same for my 68 GT500.

In two words - extremely recomended!



Mike (Germany)
68 GT500

They are really good. Stop like power discs... never have seen any fade on the street. They seem to work as well or better than the old Velvetouch linings without the destruction of the drums.
Several of my vehicles have Porterfields, one is my old '67 F-250 tow vehicle.
I'm ashamed to tell this story but I drove this truck to Santa Rosa once (over a hundred miles) with the parking brake on... It boiled the silicone fluid out of the master cylinder. I took the park brake off, added fluid and kept going. Later, upon inspection the the wheel cyinders and the axle seals were ruined but the Porterfield linings were fine and still usable!
Brake linings have come a long way in the last few years.

One of the dumber manuvers I once did was a 3-4 100 mph+ stops in succesion and was impress'd the 390Stang stopped straight and w/o fade. Then I drove it about a mile to my home and heard a distinct sizzle when I reached in and touched the drum-- might as well have touched a hot header/ouch!
Extra Capacity Pads like the Porterfield linings sure must heat everything in brakes up to awsome numbers that could rapidly get into exceeding the capabilities of components such as the drums themselves, fluid and brake internal parts.

Howdy. I've been running a pair of front drilled drums from CH Topping for about three years with Porterfield R4S shoes front and rear, rest of system totally rebuilt. They really work pretty well on my 66 Fairlane GT, comin' down off Skyline Drive in VA I've tried to really abuse them with gratuitous acceleration on short straights with hard braking - they faded pretty good about 7/8 of the way down after 20-25 hard applications. I've been happy with them.

To save shipping I gave them the part number of the vented drums that fit and they bought them locally and drilled 'em and charged me for the package, maybe $200-$250 total. Good folks to deal with, straight up.

Also I am glad I installed a dual master cylinder (vs. stock fruit jar) and a Wilwood rear brake pressure regulator. With the additional front stopping power I really had to dial back the rear brakes so they would not lock prematurely.

One last piece is to have a machine shop remove the swage on the stock front hubs so you can remove just the drum, makes life a lot easier.

FWIW, Scott

http://www.chtopping.com/CustomRod4/

Didn't know anyone still fooled with drum brakes anymore. Sounds like this method of drilling is what the old 'Vette road racers used. Hey, I don't hate drums at all. But, they do have their limits, especially when one is track racing.

Read an old SuperFord mag article the other day on racing the 427 Cobra (the real deal S/C model in ARCA, USAC, etc.). Dick Smith, the famed Cobra racer stated one had to save the brakes, do lots of downshifting and drift through many late race corners to make it to the end! Imagine the same today with powerful 4-wheel discs!.

the 4 piston KHs I had the wide drums. The good news is that they stop about as well as the discs. The bad news is that they will only do it a couple of consecutive times before they fade.



Drum brake story similar to your "juvenile" scenario; I stacked up my 65 Ranchero in July due to a sudden stop in front of me for an overloaded interchange. I felt it lock up and begin to slide. I let off and steered around the car in front but spun 180 and got hit head on. I wasn't cited by the highway patrol because I didn't hit anyone and because they determined that my drum brakes were unable to compete with discs and ABS, in other words a mechanical deficiency. But the insurance folks found me to be the "proximate cause" for failure to maintain control of my vehicle. My new Ranchero has discs and 3 point seat belts.

Hollis Franks

Black 63 1/2 XL R Code

Gray 65 289 Falcon Ranchero

luckily you weren't hurt!

Like I said, I'm all for originality but man, lose a brake line in a jar type master and it could be all over! A neighbor with a nice '61 Chev Impala has asked me to help him next spring to add a dual master to his car. All else is 100% OEM. Seems on a recent road trip this year, a fellow club member with a '64 Avanti (maybe a '65-66, don't remember) had a brake line rust through! Just missed hitting another club member's car at a stop sign.

No damage, had it towed to a local garage for repairs. Scared the bejesus out of him though as the single reservoir master was bone dry!

Brakes just slow ya down!
I'm slowly weaning myself off drums and fitting everything i've got with discs at all corners.

Around here we have lots of new but not young drivers from far away lands. These people tend to drive new BMWs,Volvos and Mercedes with excellent brakes and are liable to throw all their weight on the brake pedal for no reason at any time. Hanging back and giving yourself room doesn't work around here, there'll be three cars to fill the gap.

My Fairlane takes about a half mile to stop from 134mph and from 60 it's still probably twice what a Mercedes takes. I'll stop shy of 16" rotors and 8 piston calipers but use as large as I can fit.

http://www.revolutionbrake.com/why-big-brakes.html

One of our buds had a '65 GT, horny little 289 /4spd, and we're out in Carneros, before all the wineries and vineyards spread out there- mid-70's. We're all going to the lake, but he doesn't want to go, to he takes off for home, running it up through the gears like your average 19 yr old, we're loading up, and hear what sounds like a shotgun- back then, if you didn't hear sombody popping off a couple caps out there in the country, there musta been a football game on, so we didn't give it a second thought. We pull out, and here he comes, walking up the road, holding a warm chunk of pressure plate. Clutch blew up at the top of 3rd, and it had the stock aluminum bell on it- only thing that saved him was the clutch is just a whisker in front of the firewall- did a great job of smashing his 3-week old Hookers up against the frame, and there was a 3-inch hole in the hood where a chunk exited, right after clipping off the single brake line, clean at the front of the jug. Coasted a looooong way before stopping, nothing but cows around- one lucky SOB, and he didn't have much to say, or much color in his face, the rest of the day

on all four corners. They work great. I love 'em.

Here's a link to the pictures of the installation.
http://www.supermotors.net/vehicles/registry/7061/28794






____________________________________________

Brian
66 Fairlane GT 484FE 4spd (Weekend Cruiser)
http://www.supermotors.net/vehicles/registry/7061
DRILL HERE, DRILL NOW!