The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline 1950 1-1/2 ton rear drum removal

Asking for a friend. I am not familiar with the truck he is working on. I told him about this site and the wonderful people here who are always so eager to help a fella out, but not sure he was able to get signed up and vetted to post the inquiry. Without the manuals like I have for my 40 half ton, I was not much help to him but thought I would ask here. What steps, and are there any special tools needed to remove the rear drums on a 1950 ton and a half truck? From what we could find, you remove the plate to expose a threaded hole in the axle, then use a threaded slide hammer to pull the axle??? If that is correct, then what?

Assuming his '50 1.5 ton truck axle has the same rear axle as a '50 GMC 300 series with a GM corporate H-110 axle,

1. Remove cap screws and lock washers attaching hub cap to hub, then remove cap and gasket.
2. Thread adapter L-1436-8 into tapped hole in axle shaft and attach J-2654 slide hammer to adapter. Pull axle shaft using slide hammer (fig. 26).

Thank you Bill. So after the axle is removed will that enable the brake drum to be removed?

I've never taken one of these larger trucks brake drums off. The next size down (1 ton) brake drums have 2 flat head screws holding the brake drum in place (the lug bolts and nuts do the real work). I tried to get a brake drum of one of those without noticing the screws (covered in grime) for an hour. My friend Kenneth Crenwelge walked up and asked "Did you remove the screws?". Sure made it a lot easier.

I got a chuckle out of"sure made it alot easier". Haven't we all done something like that?

When removing axles, have both rear wheels off the ground. This way your axle won't be in a bind and can be removed with less effort.

The drum and hub get removed from the axle as a unit on your truck. The basic description for rear brake drum removal is found Here in the shop manual. A screen capture below shows the rear 1948-50 1-1/2 Ton removal info. It directs you to see Section 4 for disassembly instructions to take the drum off the hub.

There is no "bind" on the rear axle shafts of a "full floating" rear axle. The load is carried by the hollow spindle portion of the housing. The whole idea of the full floating axle is to take the load off the axle shafts so their only job is to propel the vehicle. Axles can be removed with the truck sitting on the ground and fully loaded and the effort to remove them is the same as if the truck is on a jack.

Mike

Okay.

The axle shaft/shafts could theoretically have some torque bind on them if the truck is in gear and on an incline, leave the trans in neutral, block the wheels, pull the shafts. The drums/hubs will come off after you remove the wheel bearing nut, washer, bearing.

You guys are awesome. I wish I had an update and could tell you my friend has accomplished what he set out to do, but he hasn’t gotten to it yet. I have been passing along the great tips from you all. Thanks so much.