Restoration advice

[davepl]

Originally Posted by GRX

$200 for a set of drums seems expensive. Mine were $28 a piece at NAPA. Then again, they were of asian origin. So I ground off where they said "China".

Damn, are you sure you didn't have the ultra-rare ceramic ones? Those are sort of like China. You generally only see them on Z07s these days.

So far as I remember 3/4-ton and 1-ton rear drums, except for duallies, are made from unobtainium. I would never toss a set. We might wind up re-lining those things one day if no one remakes them soon.

Sure there are a bunch out there, but my gently-used, well-maintained truck was already right at spec once we turned them down to consistently fresh metal. So finding a set doesn't mean they're even usable.

Now half tons you can probably get for $10 on RockAuto. You half-ton guys are living large, like '69 Camaros. We HD guys have it rough, like Canadian Pontiac rough.

But, for the purposes of this thread, I'll say the same as pretty much everyone else has. Don't spend a penny on looks until the thing is safe, solid, and reliable. Then drive it that way for a while to see if it stays that way. On a truck you haven't owned for a long time, quite often fixing something just pushes the failure point up to the next old and worn part behind it (think ball joints revealing bad tie rods revealing bad idler arm - and you don't know until those are all fixed that there's too much slop in your steering box).

So same as everyone else: first safe, then pretty.