[bobbader]

John, don't get me wrong ................. you have achieved what you wanted......which was to be able to get the drum over the brake shoes. This doesn't mean you have achieved good brakes at this wheel. Really Good mechanical brakes can only be achieved when each and every part in the system has precision close to when the car was new. You think you have arced the shoes with your belt sander, but, unless you made a fixture to hold the shoe at a specific arc to the belt sander, and to the measured inside diameter of each drum, what you have done, at best, is fit the shoes by eye and feel to this particular drum. If you do this at each wheel, you have approximated 4 times. Each of those "approximations" can lessen the total brake efficiency that much more. And, if you read Les Andrews book carefully, he advocates grinding the adjusting shafts only to equalize the length of each pair per shoe ...... not to "shorten" them so that the drum fits. (BTW, Snyder's service linings are not too thick. I've used them for years.)