Couple Front Drum Brake Q's

[CFrance729]

It looks like it should clear the backing plate no problem...what I think it is is that the drum isn't deep enough (height?).

I know the shop manual specifies 2.50x8 something and 2.50x10 something for the primary and secondary shoe, but says nothing about the drums themselves.

 

[CFrance729]

ya those front drums ARE swaged on at each lug.. what a pain.. i used a dremel to cut some of it and then used a deep socket on back side and pressed them out in a bench vise.. i replaced all the front lugs afterwards.. my car, i was told, sat for 20+ years and has 55k on it.. i'm thinking that should be fairly true since the drums were still swaged on and all the guts looked orig..

Both the shoes and drums are 2.5", measured just to be 100% certain...I'm really not sure, I'm thinking it has something to do with the hub or lugs. If I use a wrench I can tighten the nut to get the drum in place where its technically supposed to sit, but it isn't right. It should slide right in place and I should be able to hand tighten the nut, but thats not the case.

It looks like when I tighten the nut its just pushing the hub further out of the drum. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time with it this weekend and see whats what.

 

[piper62j]

I'm not sure if you are aware or not, but when working on any type of tubing with nuts on the end, use a tubing wrench. They bite the hex head on the nut very well.. I've also had to heat some of those nuts with a propane torch to get them to break lose..