while i'm waiting for parts to come in for the "new" truck, i'm trying to give her a good once-over while she's up on the rack. last night, I pulled the brake drums and am pretty sure i'm looking at a complete rebuild of both rear brakes. the shoes and drums are both in fine shape, but the cylinders, springs and such all look original - plus the truck does not stop as well as my other truck, for sure. I was suspicious of the one side since the e-brake cable for that side had quite a bit of slack in it, but both sides look equally bad and are very stiff all around.

luckily a complete hardware rebuild kit is only ~$20 on rockauto, so I think i'll go that route and just be done with it, but if it wasn't so darn expensive, it'd be nice to go with discs on the back, but the wallet definitely doesn't support the ~$800 conversion kit right now.

so, sticking with drum brakes, are there any special tools (other than lots of patience and safety glasses) required to do the job? I've rebuilt smaller car drum brake systems in the past, but these suckers are huge compared to those.

here's some pictures of the setup as it stands now:

left side, showing busted cable (is this cable to actuate the self-adjuster, or is it somehow related to the e-brake?)


left side adjuster - looks like its on backwards to me, but that's based on nothing - I figured i'd sort it out with the shop manual once I get to work on it.


right side adjuster - oriented the same way as other side.


neither of the adjusters moved worth a darn by hand though and the cylinders looked old and cruddy as well. I couldn't test them as I've already removed the leaking brake line back from the ABS unit back to the rear axle (well, sort of. that's another question - but lets stick to the drums for now)

anyway - the kit below appears to have all the parts needed to rebuild both drums, so with it and some new cylinders, I should be good as new, right?


now the final question - the brake line going from the ABS unit to the rubber hose mounted in the rear frame was quite rusty and looks like its been replaced in sections previously, so i'm yanking it out and replacing it with one piece while I have the midship fuel tank out. the fitting came out of the ABS unit easily, but the one in the rear fame (where it connects to the rubber hose down to the axle, right in front of the rear fuel tank) is stuck real good. its soaking in quite a bit of PB Blaster as we speak, but I've already stripped all the wrench flats off of it and have had no luck with vise grips or a hammer and chisel. any other recommendations?

i'd rather not ruin that rubber hose as it seems to be in good shape and integral to the distribution block down on the axle, which in turn seems to be magically fastened to the axle. i'm thinking of cutting the brake line just above the stuck fitting and sticking an easy-out in the resulting hole if all else fails. any other suggestions?

EDIT: oh - and one more question - all SRW axles have 3" wide brake shoes, right? it looks like duallies have 3.5" wide ones and SRW's have 3"ers, but I didn't measure this last night and want to make sure I order the right kit from work today... if there's a chance of crossover, i'll hold off, but if it was all one way or the other, i'll order today...

 

ok, I've been looking around a bit, and can't seem to find a rear disc brake conversion kit for our 8 lug rear axles, anyway. anyone know if one exists? I also haven't found mention of one on here with several searches, so it much not be that common/desirable even if it does exist.

any chance the F-Superduties has rear discs that could be swapped over to our trucks?

 

ok, i'm just talking to myself here :-) but I did a bit more research and getting disc brakes on our rear axles seems like much more trouble than its worth.

fiddling with all those stupid drum brake springs - here I come!

 

Just get an 05+ axle.... I picked up a front and rear set from an 09 for $350 ish..

Richard

EDT: if you get a 99-04 axle you can convert the hub so you dont have to change wheels. But the down side is that the brakes are smaller.

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...-are-here.html The kit are kinda expensive.

 

thanks for the info, guys. looks money and time intensive, so i'll stick with the 1920's technology that's on my rear axle for now... I'm telling myself that once I get them up to snuff again, I shouldn't have to mess with them again for another 50k miles, so i'll think about discs again at that point. plus, there should be many more early SD truck in junk yards by then :-)

 

you should get more than 50,000 miles from your rear brakes, my '97 is at 229,900 miles with the same shoes that ford put on when they built the truck

 

'99 and up is metric 8 lug, the obs wheels won't fit.

 

the 99-04 hubs can be re-drilled for OBS wheels and the rotors are small enough for 16" wheels.

That is what I ment by "converting" the hubs.

Richard

 

I'm pretty sure they are 3 inch. Just an fyi, I bought all new hardware, drums, pads, etc at napa and everything was made in the usa, and not too expensive.

 

Darin, do you recall how much the drums were? I've got mine up on stands in the shop now with all four wheels off. One drum is ok, but the other could stand to be turned. I hate turning drums and rotors though, so I'm thinking about doing new drums.

 

The other option is to drive like a grandpa and leave a little extra following distance.... costs nothing and helps with smelling the roses! I remember when they came out with CDs and everyone said they were so much better than cassettes. I never could tell the difference. The biggest difference I have ever noticed in braking was going to steel braided lines because the pedal doesn't squish as much. I suspect in racing applications you guys probably notice more.

 

Bill, if I think the drums were either 40 or 60 each, not bad. 40 seems to be in my little brain..

 

quoting myself here as the question may have been missed in my original novel of a post...

anyone have any tricks other than what I've tried? i'm going to go at it tomorrow afternoon afterwork, and if the PB blaster sitting on it for the last few days hasn't don't the job, i'll be putting an easy-out into my right-angle drill and going at it. if that doesn't work i'll have to cut it off and take the rubber hose fitting out of the frame, and replace that hose as well - trying to avoid that if I can...

 

How tough is that?

Do they fit the 8x6.5" OBS bolt pattern?
Or did you buy some new wheels?
Also...what modifications need to be done to the suspension?

I am unfamiliar with the 05 axles...whether or not they are the same D60/10.25 or if the new trucks are a new setup.

Intrigued because I want all discs, but for our era doing some half-a$$ job conversion kit with single piston calipers orrrr doing the F-superduty axle conversion with dual piston calipers, but also having to use the hydroboost and its a wider axle i believe.



And JP sorry to hijack! I plan on just keep using the current setup until i find a time/money worthy conversion. I had the PO replace all of the brakes before i purchased so i have yet to touch them.