The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 1948 3/4 brake options

Are there any brake drum options for the 3/4 ton truck? can the later 1953 drums be adapted in some way? what are you guys using or doing for brakes beside front end conversions? I would like to keep the 8 lug wheels if possible.

Thanks.
Trey

I'm told the early 3/4-ton drums are hard to find.

I think a '48 is huck style brakes and believe you have to convert the entire setup, backing plates and everything else, to use later bendix type brakes.

I'm also interested in this if anyone has any additional information it sure would help. There are a lot of 3/4 ton Chevy AD trucks out there, not as many as the 1/2 tons, that is reflected by what the vendors are selling. You can only do so many brake jobs before the drums finally need to be replaced also. I’m sure with all the 3600s that are still on the road that someone has done a full brake job and found a solution to the problem. Maybe it was discussed to death a year ago, but since I joined in September I haven’t seen the subject come up, with one exception. One of the forum members replied that he found some good used ones in a junkyard. Where are you guys finding junkyards that keep cars/trucks around that long? There is a lot more money in scrap around here so they are running every thing through the crusher bout as fast as they get them in. They certainly don’t let them sit around for 50 years.
Lets have some educated discussion on whether the bearing diameter and spacing would be the same. I would love to have access to 40’s through say, 80’s 3/4 ton spindles, backing plates and drums and put them up on the surface plate with an indicator, to make some comparisons. As we have found with the differentials, I’m sure there are some of the later parts that would work, even if you had to do some machine work to modify them.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL