The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk 1950 Huck 3100 truck brakes

My 1950 huck brakes do not have the shoe to backing plate springs...no holes or hooks to clip shoe springs....are the springs required?

Here's a link to the shop manual. Look in the brake section.

click

Look very closely at the backing plate for evidence of spot weld marks where the L-shaped sheet metal pieces used to be located. This is where the spring retainer hooks attach to the backing plates on some of the Huck brakes. I have also seen Huck backing plates with no evidence of ever having these angled pieces. I have also seen them with holes drilled for the more modern spring retainers. I don't know if some of them didn't come with those springs. The way that the Huck shoes are mounted at the bottom (pivot pins), these springs don't seem to do much when compared to the more free floating mounting of the shoes on Bendix brakes. Bottom line, I don't know the answer to your question and I haven't found a manual that describes all of the different styles of retainer hooks and springs or if they were not used in some cases.

thanks Carl....no weld marks or holes and they seemed to work great when I purchased the truck. When I pulled the drums I found new shoes and wheel cylinders...so I am not sure if they wete ever there. I am considering drilling the backing plates and installing the bendix style spring or may be just leaving it as is...thoughts?
.

I just rebuilt my 49's Huck brake system and the 1st thing that jumped out at me when I tore them down was the lack of springs and clips to hold the shoes on to the backing plate. Basically on my 49, the shoes are held to the backing plate down at the bottom by 2ea pins w/unique locking clips per shoe. A total of 4 pins per wheel. A large pin at the bottom end and a smaller pin that also has a small spring between the head of the pin and the shoe that also pins the shoe to the same bracket as the parge pin.
At the top of the shoe there is only a single large spring that spans across the backing plate to a small hole in both shoes and holds them tight against the wheel cylinder.
The rears are similar with the exception of 2 additional levers for the parking brake.
Like I remarked when I was redoing mine, these Huck brakes are definitely a different breed of drum & shoe brakes
Dave

No that you mention not finding any evidence of the springs, I recall that some of the Huck backing plates have a rim of metal (approximately 3/8 inch) around the outside portion of the plate for the edge of the shoes to ride on. I have seen them without that extra metal and those did not have any provision for the springs. So I'm guessing that some had springs and some didn't.

The Huck brake was the predecessor to the Bendix brake which had
the shoes floating so they could "hook" into the drum giving
you a power assist of sorts over the purely mechanical link
that the Huck provided. The Bendix brake takes less pedal
pressure than the Huck type brake But don't sell the Huck brake
short, it will lock up the wheel just as good as the Bendix,
just takes a little more pressure on the pedal.

Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I believe they eliminated the springs after 1948.

Bob

Thanks to everyone concerning my HUCK brake springs. I have moved forward with your help without shoe to backing plate springs. My 51 seems to be a mix of late 50 and early 51. My brake drums seem to have the ridge to keep the shoe in line.

Are you talking about a ridge on the inside of the drum (where the shoes ride) near the outside. If so, you may need to find some new drums. This ridge is there because the shoes have worn the metal away just inside this ridge and you may have an unsafe situation. Just think about how they turn drums. They start removing metal from the very edge of the drum first and the cutter moves toward the middle. This ridge, that I think you are referring to, is what makes these drums so hard to remove especially when the wheel cylinders are rusted tight.

52 car u are correct. i have a ridge on my drums and they were very hard to take off. Hope i didn't bend the back plate. we heated and pried them off. going to get them turned down if i could. If not' i will need new drums. This is for 1952 chevy 1 ton