Rear Hub Brake Shoes

P

Preacher

Senior Member
Taking apart the two rear hubs on my newly acquired '15, one side has the 2-piece cast shoe, and the other side is a one piece design that is very similar. just curious ... what is the one piece from? old aftermarket? Learned alot so far ... but just starting!
 
Look at your 2 piece shoes and see if they're actually a broken 1 piece shoe like the other one you've got. Until I knew something about model t's I was really baffled by the 1 piece / 2 piece deal. On further inspection I realized the model t rear brake shoe was really a one piece shoe with both shoes were built into just one piece. I was told that at times guys would take the one piece and brake them to make 2 separate shoes. And really if you look at the application of the shoes there's no reason to break them apart.
 
Now days it's possible to buy 2 piece brake shoes as a 2 pc. set with lining on them. They have to be ground down a little bit to work but one finished they work very good as an emergency brakes. It's not only necessary to grind the lining and there's a part of the casting that has a tendency to catch on the nuts on the inside of the wheel and loosen them. I learned of this the hard way.
 
Preacher: It's Snyder's, I believe that just recently came out with one piece original type shoes with lining on them. A HUGE improvement over the 2 piece shoe set-up everyone's been selling. Check carefully in their on line catalog as they are very new. Almost the same price as the 2 piece set. As to your orig. type shoes: the side that was in 2 pieces: They could have broken or they could have been cut. Some guy's did cut them into 2 parts when installing them. The thought was their going to break any way. I disagree with this as there's no way (without modification) to retain the shoes against the backing plate if they are seperated. (as Garrison stated above) If adjusted properly the one piece set-up flexes very little and should last for many years. There was a large discussion on this on the MTFCA Forum and it was split about 50/50 in regards to cutting them. I can't understand why. They came as 1 piece from the factory. I believe the reason was to keep them in place against the backing plate where they belong. If you get them, and I highly recommed them as replacement shoes, install them as one piece and adjust them correctly. My 2 cents. By the way, just looked it up and it's Snyder's. Part # is T-2566-RE. $79.95 for a set of 2.
 
Gentlemen, thanks for the great advice. careful inspection showed no evidence of being cut, except for the oval shape of the hole where the support bolt goes through when butted together.
 
found this on the MTFCA site;
1913-1925 Cast iron but now used two springs, each about 3-3/8'' long. The flat spring was discontinued. The brake shoe support bolt was changed from a fillister head to a hex head in early 1913. Note: These shoes were cast and machined in one piece but were supposed to be broken at the anchor point when installed.
 
Preacher said:
Note: These shoes were cast and machined in one piece but were supposed to be broken at the anchor point when installed.
Click to expand...
Hey Mr Preacher Man, was this written by someone on MTFCA or is it fact that the shoes were supposed to be broken. The reason I'm asking is if they're not broken properly (or cut) in the middle of the hole, one shoe wont mount up correctly to the anchor bolt. The springs don't exert even pressure. And as you know breaking the shoe is a bit of an uncontrolled process.
 
Original cast iron small drum brake shoes are one piece. No instructions are given in Ford Service to 'break' them at the pivot hole, seems logical that many have busted there over the years of use. On install the Ford Service says only 'place a little grease around the cam and bolt'. So you have lube at each end of the circle brake shoe.

There were many types of aftermarket back then where steel bands lined with brake material were sold as being better than just cast iron shoe. These install similar to the cast iron ones, most use only one spring.

The 'two' piece cast iron with lining is the new reproduction, it is two pieces because the same casting is flipped for use as the upper or lower shoe,....I understand a better new reproduction is now on the market from Synders, haven't seen them but that will be nice to have. I like finding the old aftermarket steel band styles and re-lining them with Model A brake shoe material, you have to grind it narrow to mate with the narrow T shoe.
 

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Garrison: the statement is attributed to Bruce MacCalley and appears in writing in his encyclopedia I believe. It is the only written statement I've ever seen that involved cutting or breaking the shoe set into 2 pieces. Some of the guys elevate this one line to Biblical proportions as in "If he said it, it MUST be so". I guess if you're already in that boat you'd swear by it too but until they start knocking the hell out of the drum retaining nuts when the shoes lean outward because there's nothing to hold them back, you'll never hear from them.
 
Thanks tmodelman and CharlieB. I was starting to think what I was pretty sure of, wasn't actually true. But now I feel better. However, just a word of warning. I put the two piece lined shoes on my touring car. They went in just as expected and I was impressed. Of course it takes a little work to get them to lay flat against the backing plate but only a point of adjustment. And I did have to grind the binding just a bit with a belt sander to get the drum to slide on but that really wasn't all that big a deal. So I got everything together and drove the car a few miles. Then a week or two later, while changing band a friend thought the one rear wheel looked odd. He walked over to shake the wheel and the hub bolts were so loose it just flopped. So while investigating the situation I found the flat part of the shoe that rides on the brake cam stuck out far enough to hit the nuts on the wheel and loosen them up. So I took the shoes off and ground a radius on the flat so it would miss the nuts, tightened the wheel back up and the problem was fixed. I don't remember who the manufacturer or supplier of the shoes was but I told the guy that I got them from to let them know what happened for safety sake.
 
I too used the 2 piece lined shoes a few years back. I have honestly done hundreds of brake jobs over the years and I've never seen a set of drum brake shoes that didn't have some kind of retainer to hold the shoes back against the backing plate. I made 2 brackets that mounted on the anchor bolts that had arms that lightly pressed against the shoes to retain them. This was after I had installed them, put a dab of grease on each wheel bolt, slid the wheel on without the keyway and spun it. This showed that they not only hit but where it hit. The retainers did the trick. Of course that's all moot now with the one piece lined set-up. That's why I'm such an advocate of installing them in one piece. They stay put.
 
The shoes stay against the backing plate fairly well if you put the springs on the inside nearer the backing plate.
 
Not arguing DP as that's what we were told to do when installing these type shoes. It works to a degree but could have been a manufacturers suggestion as to how easy they were to install. Not many stories about them leaning out & hitting something but a few was enough for me.
 
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