"Don't think brake shops today do arc grinding any longer, used to be common. Here in central Cal we've lost most of real shops that do auto repair. If they cant plug it into a computer they are stumped!"
JiM,
I'm in Santa Rosa (Sonoma County) and here there is a brake supply store that still does arc grinding. They are a couple of brothers who are running a business started by their dad decades ago. It's a rare, old school, honest business that goes out of its way to give their customers the most bang for the buck. My first encounter with them is when I went in looking for more stopping power for my '32 Ford roadster street rod. I was thinking ceramic friction or fancy rotors like drilled or slotted. Because I had built my roadster with common Aspen/Volare rotors and GM metric calipers in the front and Ford drums in the rear they suggested that I try old school asbestos friction before buying expensive techy stuff. They were right. The asbestos made a night and day difference.
Later when I did my '36 Chevy PU tandem MC conversion they set me up with a very compact tandem MC originally used on Jeeps with the same 1" bore as my '36 that is so compact that it fits nicely where the '36 MC originally was.
They really are very helpful.
How far from Santa Rosa is Turlock? It may be worth a trip over here.
"The OP has Bendix brakes. New Bendix drums are available and inexpensive, new shoes fit new drums perfectly, therefore no arc grinding is required. The Bendix brake systems design is very effective in stopping power even without asbestos"
Carl,
According to the Stovebolt information from August 6, 2007,copied below, arc grinding linings was a mainstream procedure in the days of these old trucks:
H
Hotrod Lincoln Online
Boltergeist Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 17,530
Dellrose, TN
Back before the Dirt People raised the panic flag about asbestos, it was common practice to radius-grind the linings to the exact drum diameter, and set the shoe clearance with a feeler gauge. Some relined shoes even came with extra lining thickness to accomodate the grind-to-fit process.
Jerry
.
Last edited by yar; 12/29/2018 5:11 AM.
