1960s Brake shoes made in china

[badpoints]

Trying to instal new brake shoes on front of 1967 SDV. Have Raybestos 127PG . They look almost the same as old shoes. The hole on the secondary shoe which holds the actuating lever and stabilizer plate is too close to the wall. Also the hole for the retracting spring is too small and doesn't line up. I can fix with a drill and file but thinking of putting the old shoes back on . They still look new

[Cape Cod Fleetwood]

Trying to instal new brake shoes on front of 1967 SDV. Have Raybestos 127PG . They look almost the same as old shoes. The hole on the secondary shoe which holds the actuating lever and stabilizer plate is too close to the wall. Also the hole for the retracting spring is too small and doesn't line up. I can fix with a drill and file but thinking of putting the old shoes back on . They still look new

What isn't made in China now honey? Even our politicians...
If quality car parts could be made in America at a competitive price point, they would. They can't.

[badpoints]

Can you get shoes that fit? I don't like messing with the hole that is the pivot point for the adjuster

[Cadillac Jack 82]

I'd love to see some other area of the world make products other than the CCP....but this is sadly what's happened when we started outsourcing products to China in the 70s.

[TJ Hopland]

If the old ones still have good material thickness and haven't been contaminated by brake fluid or bearing lube I would leave them in especially if you still know which were which and they can go back on the same unturned drums.   Because they are worn into those drums they will like perform much better than new ones since even if the new ones are manufactured to specs won't perfectly fit the drums till they wear a bit.

[badpoints]

I used the old pads on the front. In the rear I used one new and one old pad on each wheel.

[Tom Boehm]

For anyone else out there who is contemplating a project like this, one solution would have been to have the old correct shoes relined. In some cases these days, auto parts stores don't exchange your old core. They sell new parts made in china. I have been sending out the existing American made parts to get rebuilt at old car restoration vendors. Even if they have been changed in the past and are not original to the car. The rebuilt part is guaranteed to be right and it probably has a GM, Ford or Chrysler logo on it. This adds cost and hassle to a repair project but to me it is better than trying to work around a part from china that is not quite right.

[TJ Hopland]

If the old shoes were good enough to use half of why not just use them all?   

I can't tell you exactly why but mixing them like that doesn't seem like a good idea. 

[Jay Friedman]

For anyone else out there who is contemplating a project like this, one solution would have been to have the old correct shoes relined. In some cases these days, auto parts stores don't exchange your old core. They sell new parts made in china. I have been sending out the existing American made parts to get rebuilt at old car restoration vendors. Even if they have been changed in the past and are not original to the car. The rebuilt part is guaranteed to be right and it probably has a GM, Ford or Chrysler logo on it. This adds cost and hassle to a repair project but to me it is better than trying to work around a part from china that is not quite right.

Tom, I think it's the luck of the draw.  There is a brake shop here in the Atlanta area that has relined my original '49 shoes in the past.  They mostly deal with drum brakes used on large trucks and on my '49 they used the same lining material used on the trucks (and also "arced" the lining to the drums).  For some reason this lining has less "friction" than the original, so I had to press much harder than normal on the pedal to make the car stop, which was dangerous.  I looked on ebay and found lined Chinese shoes for a reasonable cost, which fit and work perfectly.  Go figure?

[Chopper1942]

Do not mix old and new shoes! Can't tell from the pictures if the shoes are bonded or riveted. With riveted shoes, we would reline/replace them when there was 1/32" of lining above the rivet head. Bonded shoes are replaced at 2/32"-3/32".

If you have more lining left, and the lining is not cracked or contaminated, I would deglaze the linings with crocus cloth and reuse them. If there is an issue with the linings, I would look for a brake shop that can rebuild your old shoes with the correct lining for automotive use. Have them arc the shoes and then have the drum machined. Have them only turned enough to achieve a smooth surface and don't get crazy cutting a lot on each pass. If there are cracks or hot spots in the drums, they should be replaced. You can't get rid of hot spots. You can grind them down below the drum surface but they always seem to reappear.

I hope you wore gloves and a resperator when you were working with the brakes!  The old brake linings used a lot of asbestos in them. The newer linings not so much, but it is still nasty stuff to breathe.

Put a thin coat of silicon brake grease on the contact points where the shoes touch the backing plates, the slots and threads of the adjusters, and the anchor pin where the shoes contact it.

Also, if the shoes do not have a bevel on the top and bottom edges of the shoes, take a file and bevel on the linings. This will help with grabbing and chatter of the linings when brake dust builds up in the drums.

[Lexi]

Very good advice. And yes, hot spots in your drum's machined surface usually, if not always, have a way of rearing their ugly head even after machining. They will manifest as uneven braking. Swapping drums may help, but not really a way to solve this problem unless they are replaced. Cadillac's use of LH studs on the RH side of some model years further complicate drum swapping. Best to find a replacement. Clay/Lexi