Long brake shoe in back

[Baime]

I recently rebuild the rear brakes on my 71 C2500, and other than some troublesome bleeding issues, they seem to be working good.

My cousin asked me if I put the brake shoe with the longer pad in the rear position.

Oh oh, I wasn't paying attention to this. All four shoes looked identical, but I was concentrating on the metal part of the shoe, and all of the holes and shape. They all seemed the same when I inspected them.

My question:
If two of the shoes had longer pads, and I happened to put the shoe with the long pad in front, what will happen?

I'm trying to decide if it is worth removing the drums, and possibly reassembling all of the brake components if I have them installed incorrectly.

Note: One of my drums got warm on my first test drive, and I backed off the mechanical adjustment on that side until I observed a gap between the rear brake pad and the inner surface of the drum. (I could see this gap through the slot in the backer plate. The other side already had a gap, and the drum was cool on that side.

Could having a longer brake shoe pad in front cause the auto brake adjust system to adjust the rear shoe too tight? I will keep monitoring this for a warm drum.

Thanks for your comments.

JP

[randy500]

Brake shoes always have a long and short shoe lining. The metal parts are all the same. So you could have 2 short shoes in one side and 2 long on the other side.

The rear shoe is longer because if gets more action from servo force...front shoe pushes through drum to rear shoe. I believe its longer to even out shoe wear front and rear.

The only thing that should happen if installed wrong is premature rear brake lock up from uneven force left and right.

You should check them. If its braking fine your probably ok, i find them installed wrong all the time.

[randy500]

When i say always long snd short shoe...on servo brakes which are identified by not having a fixed lower anchor point....like chevy with the adjusters at the bottom.

[Stocker]

Yes, IF there's a difference (some older vehicles had same length shoe material), the rear shoe is always the longer one.

If they are reversed, it's not the end of the world. Many years ago a mechanic installed mine incorrectly and I never knew it until I got in there myself years later to change the shoes.

Here's a helpful little illustration (not mine btw):

[Andy4639]

I just finished a brake job on my dad's 56 Bel Air. He asked the same questions. The shoes all are the same size. I took them back to the auto store and we checked several boxes all the same even for my 71 C 10. I guess they got tired of making different sizes.

[RichardJ]

>>Brake shoes always have a long and short shoe lining.<<

Oh, I wish that were true. Back in Mar, I replaced the shoes on my DANA 60 and was unable to find replacement shoes with long/short lining.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...oe#post8496054

None of the FLAPS had the shoes in stock for me to look at. After posting here, "Uncle" reported that O'Reilly and "Leddzepp" said Autozone shoes were also short/short.

After driving it these seven months, when forward driving the brakes seem the same.
There is a noticeable difference with the e-brake when parked with the nose uphill. The e-brake has to be applied extra hard to keep it from rolling back, if for instance I stop to open a gate.
Manual trans, engine running no Park position.

[Baime]

I appreciate all of the comments.

What I didn't mention:
- I've been doing a big fall project for the last 3.5 weeks on my truck (rebuild rear end, complete rebuild of the rear brake system, and new shocks.).
Note: I just removed the rear end, and brought it to a local guy who rebuilds these for many of the local drag racers.
- I'm in Minnesota, and it keeps getting colder outside. I like working on my truck, but working in a cold 30F garage was starting to get unpleasant, and I was starting to get impatient. Not a good mode for doing quality mechanical work.
- After having some trouble bleeding the brake system, I finally got it all working, and it is going into storage Saturday for the winter.
- I'm being lazy, or I would get out there and get those drums off.

My conclusions based on your comments:
- If one pad is longer, and it is on the front, I really should spend the time to put it together correctly. Lesson learned again.
- I don't think I'm going to damage anything driving my truck the 60 mile round trip to storage and back. I was concerned that it would lock up the brakes while driving.
Note: I checked the mechanical adjustment on the side that got warm during my test drive, and it still has a nice gap on both pads to drum surface.
- I'm enough of a detail person that I can't leave it in there if it is wrong, but it can wait until spring.

FYI Andy:
- I went to a local brake parts supplier that my friend recommended to get all of my brake parts. 1971 3/4 ton. They didn't have the shoes in stock, but they said they had a set of cores, and that they would add new brake pads to these cores for me. He claimed these built up shoes would be better quality than if he ordered me a set. He said, they do this often with less common shoes. He took my cores in the process.
This sounds reasonable, and I went along with it, but they could have also just built them with the same pad lengths.

Take care, JP

[Stocker]

Originally Posted by RichardJ

None of the FLAPS had the shoes in stock for me to look at.

OK, that's a new one on me, had to Google it....

[Baime]

Originally Posted by RichardJ

>>Brake shoes always have a long and short shoe lining.<<

Oh, I wish that were true. Back in Mar, I replaced the shoes on my DANA 60 and was unable to find replacement shoes with long/short lining.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...oe#post8496054

None of the FLAPS had the shoes in stock for me to look at. After posting here, "Uncle" reported that O'Reilly and "Leddzepp" said Autozone shoes were also short/short.

After driving it these seven months, when forward driving the brakes seem the same.
There is a noticeable difference with the e-brake when parked with the nose uphill. The e-brake has to be applied extra hard to keep it from rolling back, if for instance I stop to open a gate.
Manual trans, engine running no Park position.

Richard,
My truck is also a 3/4 ton with a Dana 60.

The custom manufactured shoes that I purchased locally definitely had longer shoes than the short ones in your photo. That makes me believe they built me four shoes all with longer pads.

Maybe you have a local brake place that builds custom brake shoes using your cores.

The place I went to has a machine shop, and they still turn drums, rebuild shoes and build up new brake lines to order. Plus stock brake parts for most vehicles. It looked like all of the local mechanics were coming in to get their brake parts there. Kind of an impressive place. Old school.

Good luck. JP

[Steeveedee]

Last set of shoes I put on my truck with a D60, they were all long. Bought from NAPA.

[RichardJ]

The link in my current post is from my post back in March.
The picture is of the new Napa shoes with 10" lining front and back. The 10" lining on the front shoe is shifted to the bottom, The 10" lining on the rear shoe is shifted to the top of the shoe.



The lining on original shoes measured 11 1/4" for the leading shoe and 12 3/4" for the trailing shoe. The 11 1/4" lining on the front shoe was shifted to the bottom of that shoe.

FYI, the brake material on drum brakes is called the brake lining not brake pad. The brake lining is epoxied or riveted or both to the shoe.

[Baime]

Originally Posted by Steeveedee

Last set of shoes I put on my truck with a D60, they were all long. Bought from NAPA.

Steve,
I'm the original poster of this post. I was questioning if it was worth my time to take off the drums to confirm that I had the longer shoe pad located in the rear.

FYI: I have the original D60 rear end in a 71 GMC 3/4 ton.

I was looking at all of the pictures I took of my old brakes yesterday, and I found a 5 second video that I had accidentally created. This video shows my four new brake shoes laying on the garage floor. They had all equal length pads, and they were all long.

Note: These were built by a local brake shop using someone else's brake shoe cores.

I'm assuming having all the pads long is acceptable, and I'm not going to take these brakes all apart again.

Take care, JP

[Steeveedee]

You will have absolutely no problem with the four long shoes.

[Sheepdip]

Originally Posted by Stocker

OK, that's a new one on me, had to Google it....

Me Too! But the first thing I checked was the "Urban Dictionary", and I thought......no that can't be what he's referring to.
Finally found it:
"Friendly Local Auto Parts Store"

[dutchmanz]

Just wanted to mention that some shoes actually have a different compound for the front and rear shoes. If you ended up with fronts on one side and rears on the other, it may have a brake pull. This would be worse if the compound was also different.

[Steeveedee]

I'd like to think that if someone bought a set of relined shoes, that they'd get the same friction material on all four shoes. But then I've seen where people bought shoes for front and back, and brought the front shoes back because they didn't fit...the rear. 2-1/2" fronts and 2" rears. Those boys looked at each other pretty disgustedly when I told them that, since they knew they had to go back and redo the fronts, and then do the rears. I've also seen people with two different width drums on the front. Again, 2-1/2" front brakes, but they somehow managed to put a skinny 2" rear drum on there. With a drum loose on the hub you can do that.