Oh well this is crazy…of course it would have been easier if I followed the old adage, measure twice – post once. I’ll get to that in a minute.
Every one of the parts house and everyone in one of the online forums and Facebook groups (including mine Average Guy’s Car Restorations and Projects) said the rear brake shoes for #ProjectSportsRoof were 10 inch by 2 inch. Maybe because that’s what the parts books said it should be so I went with that. I did a quick measurement of the shoes (not the drums).
Ordered the 10×2 and went to install them I noticed they seemed too small. I ordered a set from NPD and attempted to put them on, too small. Called them up and went over it with them. Together we thought they were just miss packaged. They comp’ed them and sent me another set. Check it out:
Those were (of course) the same as the last set. By chance I thought let me order a set from SummitRacing. Those too were too small.
Here a quick video:
Clearly there’s been a swap of some kind. Now if I had taken the measurements and done so thoroughly, I could have saved some frustration. Taking the shoes back and forth the local parts stores (more then one and more then one time) I found little help. I will say that CarQuest – which is way across town from my place, were the best at helping me track down the shoe size. The guys on 3 Facebook groups all were helpful…but I made a mistake there. I had mocked up the drums you see in the video just to show them the size difference. Well that led to a lot of post freaking out about the lack of auto adjuster parts – which aren’t necessary, if you don’t mind making the adjustments yourself, when you feel the braking a bit off – NOT RECOMMEND however for general/common drivers and the spring wouldn’t fit…because the shoe were too small to hold them in place I popped any spring that I could get on easily. As always you’ve a few condescending “experts” that missed the point of the pics/videos but that’s gonna happen on the web.
So the hunt began. I’ll fill you in on that in the next post and show you the measurements I “SHOULD” have taken.
Thanks for checking in!!
Tim
Beep beep came from the factory with no self adjusters. I have been told that police package brakes from back in the day had no self adjusting drum brakes. The factory service manual also states police package cars do not have self adjusting drum brakes.