Front Brake Drum Rivited to Hub?!?!

[Chris Hill]

Hello,

Just bought a 70 C-10 2wd pick-up to play around with and it has horrible brakes and began to check the brakes. The short story version is the damn driver side front brake drum was rivited to the front hub, WTF?!?! The rivit seemed to be factory, but I have no idea why.

I realize I have not worked on alot of old cars, but why would the hub be rivited to the brake drum and how common is this?

[Alan Roehrich]

Very common on older vehicles. It was intended to inspire people to pack the bearings every time they did a brake job. The other thing it does is makes sure the drum stays located the same way on the hub. So once it is balanced, it stays balanced. And when you turn it on a brake lathe, it is turned concentric to the hub.

Those old drum brakes aren't great. You can make them better with modern shoes and drums. But you can't make them disc brakes. However, GM was good enough to keep things very interchangeable, so later disc brake stuff swaps right on. On my 70 C-30, I swapped to 80 C-38 A-arms, spindles, rotors and brakes without changing anything else except the master cylinder and the proportioning valve. Now it is a K-30 4X4, but that's another story. If your truck is six lug, and many were, there were a couple of years they made 6 lug disc brakes on the later models. If it is 5 lug, then the stuff off of a 73-87 C-10 will swap on.

[njk53]

The rivet and the copper circular clip used on passenger car was also used to keep the drum from vibrating off of the vehicle when it went down the assembly line.

I remember reading an article in either Car Craft or Hot Rod Magazine about a company out of Texas that manufactures a brake shoe that has 30% better stopping power over ordinary brake shoes. Sorry, I don't recall the name of the place but maybe you can search the internet and find them. This would be a little better alternative to stock shoes if changing over to disc brakes is out of the question.

[Jeff Lee]

search "Praise Dyno Brakes"

[Chris Hill]

Thanks for the info. I was just surprised to see the rivits.

Chris

[Dragsinger]

Chris,

you can cut/grind the rivet head off and punch it through the hub. [if drum replacement is required] in the "olden days" we did it regularly. Of course, there is no need to reinstall the rivets.

Here are a few things that will improver those brakes, however, as mentioned above, they are only "fair" at best.

Make sure the drums are not excessively over size. If memory serves me correctly, those brakes are 11" X 2" If the drums are more than 11.030 - 11.040 you loose the natural cam/self energizing action. Also, a premium riveted brake lining set will help. Plus, be sure to either replace or re-kit the wheel cylinders. And, do not neglect the rear brakes, just as important for them to be up-to-speed [so to speak]

[Lyn Smith]

Dont waste your time or money on Praise Dyno Brakes. Send me a PM and I will tell you why.

[Real Racer]

Originally Posted by Lyn Smith

Dont waste your time or money on Praise Dyno Brakes. Send me a PM and I will tell you why.

Please tell us all why. They have been mentioned on these forums many times and I was just thinking about buying some myself.

Thanks

[Lyn Smith]

the brake shoes and spring kit is the same thing you can buy at any auto parts store,but they charge you double for it.they claim the cylinders are bigger,but the ones they sent me where the same as the ones I took out. they also had to be sent back because they leaked.other racers have had problems also.If your front cylinders have a pre formed metal line going to the cylinder ,they will not work with the cylinders they send you, so you will have to re engineer your front brake lines.

[Real Racer]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll stick with NAPA.