1936 Brake Drums

[Bob56]

Looking at brake drums for my 1936 Club Cab. Is 12" and 12 1/16" considered a lot of meat left for cutting

[deuce lover]

12.060 is MAX

[Tim Brown]

Is it documented anywhere that .060 is the max oversize for a 1936 drum? Like in some ford documentation? Im just curious.

[Mart]

Do they NEED turning? When brake drums are not easily replaceable turning should only be done as a last resort. I'm not a betting man but would wonder if Ford applied a max oversize when those brakes were made. I'd be interested to see if a figure was quoted BACK IN THE DAY.

[Kube]

Originally Posted by Tim Brown

Is it documented anywhere that .060 is the max oversize for a 1936 drum? Like in some ford documentation? Im just curious.

Service letter...it's included (or should be if the dealer did it) in the service manual binder.
Tim, rest assured, the maximum is 12.060".

[Juergen]

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Ford never quoted a figure in their manuals and it was suspiciously absent. In several early Ford manuals (like the 1941-1948 Ford Service manuals), the car specs were blank while some trucks had limits. In the 1949 - 1951 passenger car shop manual, with the arrival of Bendix brakes, Ford specified .060. The late Dick Spadaro offered this advice; use .060 for Bendix brakes and .090 for Lockheed brakes.

Now you will get a lot of people claiming state rules are at .060 but I have never seen any barner back up this claim with written evidence of a law. I had an aluminum GM brake drum that had .090 as the maximum diameter.

[34fordy]

Let me qualify myself first: I do not know poop from putty about specifications!
Folks that turn shoes are not supposed to go beyond .060, for sure. I would wager that millions of drums were turned until they were clean without being checked for size. However, after getting to 12.060 most cars will be driven many miles causing wear beyond the "specifications." I suspect that many of us are driving our collector Fords well beyond the .060 lathe turning. I had a beautiful pair of 1935 front drums that measured 12.090. If I had a 35 Ford I would not have hesitated to use them. I took them to the scrap yard as I felt, after learning about the .060 limit, it would not be right to sell or give them away. I suppose that there have been many instances where a drum failed due to excess wear. But in my 65 years of working and/or hanging around automotive shops, I have never seen a drum that failed.

[Karl Wolf]

Originally Posted by Juergen

Ford never quoted a figure in their manuals and it was suspiciously absent. In several early Ford manuals (like the 1941-1948 Ford Service manuals), the car specs were blank while some trucks had limits. In the 1949 - 1951 passenger car shop manual, with the arrival of Bendix brakes, Ford specified .060. The late Dick Spadaro offered this advice; use .060 for Bendix brakes and .090 for Lockheed brakes.

Now you will get a lot of people claiming state rules are at .060 but I have never seen any barner back up this claim with written evidence of a law. I had an aluminum GM brake drum that had .090 as the maximum diameter.

That may have been the drums from an 12" Buick... They STARTED at 12.030, and would be at 12.090 when at max size. This is pretty much a unique situation. Old VWs are another.

On a drum that's got grooves that go deep, I may machine out to .060, leaving some raw grooves... Doesn't seem to make a difference.

Karl