[Fred A]

Took off my drums to inspect brakes and found two badly grooved from rivets and two at 9.060" but round. Kanter has the rears listed at $150(ouch!) ea, but no fronts. I'm trying to keep the expenses down on this rig and will not replace anything that is not essential. The brakes seemed to work well enough now, but the proposal is to replace the shoes and put kits in the wheel cylinders to freshen that up. This method worked well in the sixties but it may sound like the third world these days. Is the old standard of +.060 max for these drums. Other than making drum removal difficult, what is the down side of leaving the rivet grooves? Thanks to the guys that responded to my other postings. Fred A

[Fred A]

Took off my drums to inspect brakes and found two badly grooved from rivets and two at 9.060" but round. Kanter has the rears listed at $150(ouch!) ea, but no fronts. I'm trying to keep the expenses down on this rig and will not replace anything that is not essential. The brakes seemed to work well enough now, but the proposal is to replace the shoes and put kits in the wheel cylinders to freshen that up. This method worked well in the sixties but it may sound like the third world these days. Is the old standard of +.060 max for these drums. Other than making drum removal difficult, what is the down side of leaving the rivet grooves? Thanks to the guys that responded to my other postings. Fred A

[Poncho_Villa]

Hey Fred, try Ken Freeman at http://www.eastwestautoparts.com/
He has a few of these cars for parts.

[Fred A]

Took my brake calipers to a bunch of pick-part yards this morning and found two useable drums. One rusty one on an unbelievably rusty coupe that was being perpared to be squashed and loaded out. Had to twist off one of the frozen lug studs to get the wheel off. The drum was standard with .012" wear in the outer contact area. The other was a front right, cut + .035" with about another .010" rivet groove. Most of that groove will disappear when turned minimally. Someone must like the engines because all were already gone from the tempests. This trip exhausted the Tempests on the local database. These junkyards are like a car eating machine that picks them clean and spits them out to the scrap very quickly. The price of steel is waaaay up and the maching is chewing faster than ever. Thanks: Fred A

[63Longtop]

I have a drum set-up that working fine when it was pulled last year. Wheel cylinders are good, shoes are decent and has good filled drums. I even have a set of slighly used rubber hoses. $60 shipped! JIM

[Fred A]

Bless the rustbucket donors, gave me a standard rear drum that cleaned at +.015" which may be great for a tempest. The other side with the rivet grooves went out to +.050 leaving a bit of a groove but should be OK after the breakin. On my front drums I must not have believed my eyes on the numbers, but they were +.125(wow)". You can read the newspaper through those. They had not been on the car long enough to get dusty. The spindle nuts were only finger tight. I am sure they should have been tightened to one more slot in the nut. The junkyard front drum cleaned up at =.050 which would not be great in the recent era, but with one more good drum in hand I'll tackle the front brakes. I'll be limping around the Los Angeles area with the car this week but will be taking it gently until something on the car is within specs, starting with the brakes. The Goodrich narrow whites from Costco look great. I'm trying to figure out if the stripped fuelpump threads in the timing cover can be Helicoiled in the car. The steering gear makes it a tight fit. To Jim Linenberger: What are good filled drums?? Can't imagine having used wheel cylinders in my hand without putting in new cups. Interested though. Thanks: Fred A

[63Longtop]

Oops, meant to say finned drums. I guess I'll throw them in the scrap pile! JIM