The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline Front brake shoes for 1957 Chevy 1/2 ton NAPCO

Are the front shoes interchangeable with the standard front brake shoes found on the pick up and suburban. I know the front wheel brake cylinders are different.

This is a more difficult question thank you might think. I had the NAPCO standard drum brakes on my 1957 half-ton suspension (truck is actually a 3/4 ton). The brake hardware is actually Studebaker (fronts), including the shoes, The Studebaker auto adjusters and all associated parts, clips, springs etc. are used (about a 1953 Champion I think). The NAPCO drums are a bit different (the diameter of the inside cut out for the spindle is larger. So actually you need the NAPCO/Studebaker setup. What adds to the difficulty, it seems that NAPCO (they are still here in Minneapolis by the way - no old parts though), wasn't very stringent on the exact builds for every year. So you can get what is sold as 1957 hardware/parts, but it can be "slightly" different, enough to be not workable. The parts are hard enough to find, then getting what you thought was for your year and they don't fit is frustrating. I'm guessing you might know all this already though.

I bought my brake parts from an on-line Studebaker mom/pop parts seller. They pretty much had all the internals. If I remember the NAPCO drums are impossible to get (I modified my original drums - took the shoes and drums to a machine shop in Minneapolis specializing in brakes/machining). I still had problems the brakes kept locking up on me and burning the shoes (even though they were shaped at the machine shop). The whole set-up seemed weak to me.

The bottom line, I scrapped the drum brake set-up and fabricated a disk brake configuration using 2001 Chevy Silverado rotors, calipers, brackets, etc. in addition to a dual master cylinder for disk/drum combo (rears are still drum).That has worked great for me. I got the fabrication plan from the old NAPCO site, I may have a hard copy of it somewhere. I probably kept my receipts for the associated Studebaker parts/vendor address. Also, I still have the brake technical specs, install and alignment procedures (hardcopy). If you want any of that, let me know. In any case, my experience was that the disk brakes are well worth the effort, and stop the truck way better. As a parting thought, I added power steering to my truck and it made driving it a pleasure instead of work.
don

Here's the set up on it.

Yes I would like a copy if you can find it. Thanks.

The P/N is 3750757 (kit front 2 primary and 2 secondary) Chevy57-59, GMC 58-59. The Hollander Interchange book 1963, list the following interchangeable shoes.
Ford 1948-1963 F1 F100 front
Studebaker 1957-1959 2, 3, 6, and 7 4x4
Mercury 1949-1955 front

So the p/n you posted 3750757 for the kit is it still available and who made it ? If you know. Thanks. Is this Holder interchange book also still available.

No, the kit is not available. 3750757 is the original number (Bendix 308100) out of the chevy and GMC parts books. Hollander 30TH Edition did not list the number just the make, model and years for the shoes.

The Hollander books are not parts book. You can buy Napco manuals.

Napco