First what year are these brakes from? Are they from a car or truck? The wheel cylinder is stamped 1" on one end and 1 1/4" on the other end. The new pads i ordered came with full liner on all pads. The old pads had one liner shorter. What is the reason for the shorter liner? Will the new pads with full size liner be ok? Thanks for you help
Look like '40/'48 Passenger car Ford brakes. It is likely they also were used on the Pickups/Sedan Deliverys, especially the '40/'41 models. The stepped wheel cylinder diameters are used to equalize braking forces between leading and trailing brakes shoes since this is not a self energizing brake design. Usually, the short and long linings are used with self energizers for the same reason. Yours should have the equal length brake shoe linings. Ray
Shoes and cylinders are '39 - '41 Ford, car or pickup. Drum is '40 - '48, although a slightly different design was used from '42 - '48. The larger piston in the cylinder faces forward and the longer shoe faces forward. These brakes are not self-equalizing.
Short shoe typically goes to the leading side, because it is self activating. Long shoe to the trailing or rear on the backing plate, because it is less effective, therefore longer.
Here is another thread from the HAMB. There is some controversy. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/brake-shoes-which-direction.376489/
I would like to keep the drum brakes that came with this car. Is this system good? Or should i up grade to a brake system that will sell- equalizing? Would it be possible to change this set up to self-equalizing and keep the existing backing plate and drums? Thanks for your help
The short shoe does to the front on self-energizing brakes, but it is the other way around on non- self-energizing brakes. The long shoe goes to the front on these Ford brakes.
Not true with a non-servo brake like the Lockheed. The long primary shoe goes to the front along with the larger wheel cylinder piston. Bendix style servo brakes place the shorter primary shoe to the front, long secondary to the rear.
The older Ford brakes work ok, but they are difficult to get set up. Self-energizing brakes are far superior. The switch over requires new backing plates and drums. You can go the F1/F100 route or aftermarket kits. The kits can get expensive. For the F1/F100 setup you need the original backing plates and hubs, all the other parts are available anywhere.
Somebody must have had the wrong shoes with those cylinders. The new shoes work with the 1"-1 1/4" stepped cyl.
Awww crap! Mine are backwards then! This is what I get for building musclecars all these years! Just an fyi: the wheel cylinders are side specific AND front to back specific, ask me how I know. . . I got to do them twice! Sent from my SM-G900V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app