The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Driveline 58 Front brake drums stuck to hub ?

I took all the drums of my '58 so I can do a full restoration of the brakes. Back drums came off OK, but look worn. Front Driver side drum came off hub OK no problem. Front passenger side drum is stuck on the hub. I pulled hub & drum off together to work on away from my chasis. Been applying penetrating fluid daily for a week.

Besides the 6 wheel studs, it looks like there are rivets in the hub through to the drum. Are these rivets like locating dowels, or could they be swaged over on the outside of drum, requiring removal ? Nothing in the shop manual talks about riveting drums to hubs.

On close inspection of Drivers side, it looks like someone has cut rivet down in the past to get a drum off the hub.

Appreciate some experience on what the extra rivets are for, and best route to separate Drum from Hub. Any risk of a rivet coming out on it's own ?

Thanks.

Removal of the rivets aren't required to remove the front drums, you can take the bearings apart to remove them (the bearings should be repacked as part of the brake job). if you want to replace the drums, then the rivets will have to be removed. Not a big problem to deal with, cut them off or drill them out. The rivets do not need to be replaced, their primary function was to hold the drum/hub assembly together during assembly of the truck. If you plan on running an aftermarket wheel, they will have to removed to allow the wheel to fit flush.

The brake drum has rusted to the hub, and also maybe to the wheel studs. support the drum on some 2by fours so that the hub has about 1/2" clearance below with the studs facing up and lightly tap around the center hole of the drum with a brass punch and small hammer. You may have to heat the drum a little bit with a small propane torch used for fixing water pipes.

Make sure you remove the rest of the rivets from the hubs. A buddy of mine had one come loose inside the drum and wreaked havoc on the wheel cylinder resulting in a no brakes at all situation due to the huge fluid leak. Only takes a minute to remove them and could save your life.

Thanks folks. I was especially wondering about the old rivets, along the line of what gotgasd said. I figured it could be catastrophic, and completely unpredictable.

I drilled the rivets out today, and the drum separated from the hub without difficulty.

Sure am curious why I have what appears to be two identical, almost new drums on the hubs. One was riveted on tight, one had rivets half cut out. Sure doesn't make any sense to me.

So is it the general accepted to not replace the rivets ? Makes it much easier to do a brake inspection later.

Since drums/hubs are getting expensive these days I can see why folks now drill out the rivets and just change drums.....but back in my day we never did that as good drums/hubs could be had at the local salvage yard for cheap so I never had to worry about rivets. I can say that in my 62 years I have never seen a front drum that was not riveted. Just ironic but its the truth.

I would not be afraid to run them without the rivets though. Think about how rotors "hang" on the hub in todays world!!

Exactly why I swapped to a dual master cylinder. Lessens the odds of total failure.