Sometimes shoes don't sit flat on the backing plate due to wear at the cotnact surfaces. The shoes touch the bacing plate at 3? places; there's a stamped-out arc of steel on the shoe that rides on a raised portion of the backing plate. It eventually wears a groove, and the shoe falls into it, and is no longer parallel to the drum surface. If the groove is deep enough -- and they seem to vary all over the place from slight (1/32") to deep (over 1/8"). But if the drum is bolted on right it should run true when you spin it, at least. If the drum wobbles certainly that's a problem. > My car was making scraping sounds from the front left. I wasn't real > sure about that drum. On taking it off yesterday, I noticed metal > inside it - almost like when you use a surface grinder on metal. Not > shaving, more like a dust. > Well, the drum had a few bolt holes that > were bent in a bit (over-tightening cheap metal?). More likely, it wasn't flat on the hub when the untrained ape with the impact wrench overtightened the wheel to it. The wheel lug studs have a very slight shoulder, and the drum fits very closely to them to keep it centered. If you didn't pay attention (crappy tire places, "its just an old car, no one cares") you coudl get the drum on cock-eyed. > The outside edge of > the brake shoe had all the paint (or coating) worn off, and was shiny, > well-polished metal. It wasn't to the pad - but had hit the side of > the shoe. The front shoe was fine, the rear shoe shows some > "polishing" on the edge. GOod observation! That's the sort of eye it takes to solve problems in old cars -- stuff that "cant" or "shouldn't" happen but does. _______________________________________________ Amc-list mailing list Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://splatter.wps.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/amc-list