Parking brake shoe lining

When I did mine, I found that an angle grinder worked best.

 

uh, I may be aging myself but I recall the drums were turned & the new shoes were "arced". That is, the outside radius of the shoes were adjusted to match the inside radius of the newly turned drums. This would result in a properly matched set of shoes/drums. If the surface is not in complete contact
there is not enough friction area to be efficient.

 

I used a belt sander to grind own my shoes. I put the shoe in the drum to see where I needed to remove material. Going to be on the ends. Belt sander with some 80 grit works great and keeps the surface smooth and flat.

 

Howdy, I had a brake shop put new linings on my shoes, and then they had a machine to grind down the new linings to true them up and to fit my drum. Mite be hard to find a shop to do it now days!!!

 

Yeah, don't turn the drum if you don't have to.

Back in the day, "arcing" the shoes to the drum diameter was common practice. Last time I did drum brakes, the shop told me that nobody arcs shoes anymore.

Yeah, I'd grind the shoes myself. A stand-alone disk sander or vertical belt sander would be ideal, I would think.

 

I had the machine to do it and let it get away from me mehh it had a drum sander with a adjustable jig to put the shoe in.....

 

Arcing matches the curvature of the drum to the curvature of the shoe. If the drum is oversized, the shoe will only contact in the center until it wears in.

Everyone did this to drum brake shoes back in the day.

If the problem is lack of adjustment, then modifying the steel as Patrick suggests would make more sense than removing friction material. I don't know what the parking brake shoes look like, but if they were Bendix shoes, I'd grind a little where the self-adjusters notch into the shoes.

 

Wear your mask.

 

m38a1 parking brake shoes, one goes inside the drum and the other on the outer (works like a disc setup kinda) not sure what to do there don...........

 

wood file or rasp??

 

Are you a wood worker? Do you have a stationary disk or belt sander?

For the inside shoe, you could easily make a fixture to turn the shoe at a consistent arc. For the outer shoe, I'd use a drum sander or one end of a belt sander.

I don't know how old the lining material is, but it's probably not asbestos if the shoes were relined recently. Nonetheless, I'd be careful to control the dust.