The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop rear brake drums stuck

I'm trying to remove a rear brake drum that looks like it hasn't been off since the truck was new. I have a broken bolt and a frozen bolt on my 1953 1 ton rear end dually brake drum and the drum is rusted solid to the lub bolts. Any suggestions on how to remove the drum?

The drum is held on to the hub by two or three screws. If you can't get them out then drill out the heads. Next, you need to really smack the drum against the hub with a hammer, in and around the studs, without hitting them. When you see lots of rust flying, you know that you are breaking the bond. Next, exert some reasonable pulling force on the outside of the drum while tapping around the face with a hammer.

Soak it with your favorite penetrating oil for a week or so before you start wanging on it with a hammer, per truckernix's instructions.

Make sure you back off the brake adjusters, if you can. THe brake drums often have a ridge on the inside the the brake shoes hang up on this ridge and hold the drum on. If worse comes to worse you can break or cut the heads off the hold down pins that secure the brake shoes to the backing plate. Don't worry about getting new ones, they are pretty standard. The only thing that is hard to get is the drum itself, and it might be easier with a dually drum.

Finally if it really gets ugly, email me and I'll send you a picture of how I did it with an extremely bad job. I took a puller and modified it to work on the big drums.

I just went through a drum removal on my 51 one ton. In my case I took the screws out OK, heated the drum with torch around the hub to break it loose. You could see it move on the hub but I could not back the shoes off. The adjusters on the one ton are a ratchet deal that will just strip under any force. There are no hold down pins through the backing plate. I cut the rusty e cable to release that, still no good. I ended up getting it off by unbolting the wheel cylinder and wailing on it with a BFH to drive it out from between the shoes. That released them enough for the drum to easliy come off. I really had to hit that sucker for a while and I will for sure need a new wheeel cylinder. Those 14 inch drums don't grow on trees, but I can allways get a new cylinder. I think the 53 is different but perhaps the same method could be used.

Success. I drilled out the two screws and with the help of blaster and a 2lb hammer it broke free. Thanks for the help.