Rear Brake Drum Dilemma

[old cool]

Hey Roger. Hope you're still out there and willing to communicate. If so..great!
Hopefully my questions are simple and straight to the point.
1. Is your braking still in perfect working order with the 74 wagoneer drums from Orielly?
2. I have a 66 GMC with rear leafs and a dana 44. The build date was 1965. Yes, the drums are bigger than the front (depth about 3.5 inches). Sounds just like yours. If I have the center bored out to specs and the lug openings, will I need to do anything else? Your additional info on the emergency cable sounded like it has nothing to do with the drum working. That is, it was a mod you needed to make because the plate was incorrect.

Buy drums, have them machined, and put em on. Sound to good to be true.lol

[roger55]

Originally Posted by old cool

Hey Roger. Hope you're still out there and willing to communicate. If so..great!
Hopefully my questions are simple and straight to the point.
1. Is your braking still in perfect working order with the 74 wagoneer drums from Orielly?
2. I have a 66 GMC with rear leafs and a dana 44. The build date was 1965. Yes, the drums are bigger than the front (depth about 3.5 inches). Sounds just like yours. If I have the center bored out to specs and the lug openings, will I need to do anything else? Your additional info on the emergency cable sounded like it has nothing to do with the drum working. That is, it was a mod you needed to make because the plate was incorrect.

Buy drums, have them machined, and put em on. Sound to good to be true.lol

Still here.

Yes, the Wagoneer drums work perfectly with the center hole machining and lug holes drilled out larger.
Go for it.

Right the e-brake cable issue doesn't have an effect on the drum working. But if you use the stock e-brake setup, you either have to have custom rear cables made (I suggest Inline Tube for that) or find as set of donor back plates and do what I did. Donor plates would be simple to come by at a wrecking yard. That style was use extensively over the years.

[Ozzy2013]

I have a whole dana 44 6 lug rear differential for sale for 100.00 its from a 68 gmc.
the drums are in great shape.

[roger55]

Makes a great rear for a 55-59.
Perfect width, very wide assortment of ratios available. All parts for it are available too including the trac-loc posi units.
Unlike the situation for the original rears for our trucks.

I solved the situation for replacement drums.

[old cool]

Man o man Roger. Im still unclear about backing plate dilemma. I am 100% 65 gmc dana 44, 3:54 gears as original. Why do I need to make a mod at all for e brake. Does it not work with wagoneer drum? Or, is my stock backing plate too large or small??
All I need are the drums.
Why I'm getting confused is I'm thinking you have a 57 backing plate. Mine is a 65.
One more clarification would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, excellent thread. Thank you a million. I'll bet every guy with a 65 or 66 will find this extremely helpful!

[roger55]

Originally Posted by old cool

Man o man Roger. Im still unclear about backing plate dilemma. I am 100% 65 gmc dana 44, 3:54 gears as original. Why do I need to make a mod at all for e brake. Does it not work with wagoneer drum? Or, is my stock backing plate too large or small??
All I need are the drums.
Why I'm getting confused is I'm thinking you have a 57 backing plate. Mine is a 65.
One more clarification would be greatly appreciated.
BTW, excellent thread. Thank you a million. I'll bet every guy with a 65 or 66 will find this extremely helpful!

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear.
My backing plates came with the '65 GMC rear assembly so they are the same as yours.

The e-brake issue has absolutely nothing to do with the usage of Wagoneer drums.

The issue is the rear e-brake cables that are used with this generation of truck use this style of connection to the backing plate:



While the '65 GMC pickup e-brake cable mounts to the backing plates like this:



So, if you have stock rear e-brake cables in your truck or if you order new ones, they won't mount to the 65 GMC backing plate unless you do one of two things.
Get custom rear e-brake cables or modifiy the backing plates using donor plates like I did.

Here's a photo of the donor plates I used along with my 65 GMC plates:



Here's a photo of my 65 GMC plates after doing the modification and my Chevy truck original e-brake cable and the 65 GMC e-brake cable.



I hope this clears it all up for you.