I was working on my upcoming Daily Driver tonight and I thought of this thread.
To give a little perspective about front drum brakes that some folks on here may not understand. They're far different from rear drum brakes.
To give a little perspective, the car is a 1962 Pontiac Laurentian (This is a Canadian built Pontiac) that translates to "1962 Chevy Biscayne" in American.
It's a full size 4-door car with a 261 CID I6 and a 2-speed Powerglide automatic.
Here's the front drum setup:
I know, it's ugly but it's all getting replaced and repainted.
Here is the size of the shoe, that's a quarter sitting on it:
See, LOTS of friction surface there to do your stopping.
The manufacturers did a fairly good job of designing these systems, there is no proportioning valve, all the brake bias is set by the size of the wheel cylinders and the shoes.
Shawn
But dang they get hot and fade QUICK. 
Particularly with cheap brake shoes. Not saying the ones you have are junk, but man back in da day there were some available that looked like they were lined with beer carton cardboard. I used to cringe when people bought the absolute cheapest shoe we had for the front.
Yup, always name-brand brake parts. The ones in the pics are Wagners.
I've had lots of trouble with bonded linings de-bonding lately. My '96 F-150 went through three pairs of bonded shoes before my parts guy finally found me some riveted linings.
It's getting harder to find good, riveted shoes nowadays.
Heat is certainly an issue with drums, ask my wife about a time in my '67 Jeep Gladiator with a camper on the back on a windy mountain road.
Another reason I love manual transmissions.
The best way to be safe driving a four-wheel-drum car is simply to be aware that you have drum brakes on all four corners and drive accordingly.
I have a '57 T-bird remote booster that I may plumb into the system if there is not enough power but I'm betting I'll be just fine with the stock brakes.
novaderrik wrote:
drums brakes are easy- if you have the proper tools and only do one side at a time..
they suck if you only have a screwdriver and a pliers and just tear everything apart and throw it in one big pile- or if someone else doesn't have the proper tools and tears them apart and you have to figure out how it all goes back together...
I had a buddy in high school whose dad would consistently tear everything apart, get confused and then have me put them back together with pliers and a screwdriver.
Perhaps this is the seat of my drum brake hatred?
Trans_Maro wrote:
I've had lots of trouble with bonded linings de-bonding lately. My '96 F-150 went through three pairs of bonded shoes before my parts guy finally found me some riveted linings.
We hardly even look at lining thickness anymore- most often, we change shoes because the lining is de-bonding. Its pretty normal to be able to pop the lining off with a screwdriver. Second gen Neons in particular. I've had a couple of cars towed in with a rear wheel locked solid when one lining jammed under the other shoe. Had to split the drum to get it off.
Zomby woof wrote:
A little tip for those of you that are drum disadvantaged. Pull the phone out of your pocket and snap a pic before you tear them down. That's how I taught my son to do drum brake jobs, and he does them like an old timer now.
Before such gadgets, just do one side at a time, using the opposite side for reference.
That's how we did unfamiliar drums back in the old days,
