1) It seems I need a puller to remove drums. Do I need that puller for front and rear brake drums?
2) I have read somewhere that some wheel studs are left threaded on Studebaker cars. Is that the case with my 1962 GT? I do not know if this is of any importance but this is a Canadian built car with a V8 289 CID.
3) Front brake overhaul, both sides : Are these the right parts?
3a) Font drums. I have looked left and right to find drums for that car and specific year and came empty handed. Anybody knows if these drums can be sourced? What are my options beside doing a costly disc brake conversion? It seems the front drums are 11 inches and bolt pattern is 4.5 X 5. Can a drum from another car be used directly without any modification or machining? Can one be used with machining?
b) What are the exact specs of these front drums?
c) Could not find front brake shoes. Short of having them relined, anyone knows of a company which sells such shoes?
4) Rear brake overhaul, both sides. Are these the right parts?
4a) Rear drums : it seems they are 10 inches drums. Are there new ones available? I am confused about finned ones and non finned ones. What should I use??
4b) Rear brake shoes? Any suggestions about what I can use?
5) Any pitfalls to avoid when working on Studebaker brakes?
you need a hub puller for backs only.
you need one of the many Stude vendors to get all the stuuf you need for the job.
1962 cars "should not" have left hand threads, but look to see a stamped "L" on the studs before turning.
If you need front drums, they are out there used (I have 2), tho you can get re-popped from our big SI vendor.
..Hawks and power Larks came finned for better cooling, not sure if your driving habits require them.
Welcome to the Forum, Christian.
You'll need a puller, but only for the rear brakes. If you remove the rear drums, take the time to remove the rear axles too, so you can grease the rear bearings.
If your car is original, all the wheel studs are right threaded.
You can get the parts you need from Stephen Allen,http://mystudebaker.com/brakes/studebaker-brake-shoes-backing-plates-return-springs-self-adjusting-parts/, but there are many other vendors.
If you have to turn you brake drums, don't forget that they will need thicker linings to compensate for this. So, measure your drums first, and only order the linings after.
Don't forget that special grease (like the red Castrol one) has to be used with all hydraulic components and that all mechanical friction points in the system (except linings, of course!) takes high temp grease.
I wish you lots of pleasure with your Hawk.
Don't forget that this would be the perfect time to replace the original Master Cylinder with an upgrade to a dual master cylinder. Also replace all 3 rubber flex lines, 2 on the front and 1 on the rear. At least flush the metal lines or better yet, replace with new. 55 years of corrosion and build up of sludge in those metal lines can cause a failure when everything else is new and performing like new. Brakes are a hydraulic pressure system and will seek the weakest point to fail.
Might make sense to upgrade to front disc brakes too if this is going to be driven often. "Turner Brakes" will steer you to all the correct parts to make your car stop like a new car. Other vendors have systems too.
As for getting the original parts, contact any of the Studebaker vendors for the correct parts.
You only need the drum puller for the rear drums, but make sure you use the correct type or you could damage a drum. Your car should not have any backwards threaded lug studs to worry about.
Unless drums are damaged or already over sized, they can usually be turned by any competent machine shop and reused. If they need to be replaced, use the same type that you remove.
All the internal brake parts (including the master cylinder and hoses) may be purchased from Studebaker-International as a complete kit for about US$500.00. New finned drums are extra at about $200 each for the fronts and $160 each for the rears. I just had my '62 GT brakes completely rebuilt with their parts. See their catalog on-line at pages 260-261. IMO, be careful you insist on what I call non-semi-metallic shoes (I had some sent to me with tiny copper particles imbedded in the shoe material.) The semi-metallics squeal. They look like this.
I don't know why because I've only had the car for 2-½ years, but my mechanic told me that the rear drums came off without having to pull the axles.
Pulling the rear drums has nothing to do with pulling the axles. Drums and hub get pulled off of the axel as an assembly. Then the axle can be pulled if desired. DO NOT try to pull the drum, hub and axle as one piece or you will cause severe damage to multiple parts. Get the service manual and have your mechanic follow the sequences to remove and replace.
I purchased all of my brake items such as master cylinder and wheel cylinders and all new brake lines from Amazon for my '62 GT. Saved a ton of money and the items have worked great for me.
Jim Kaufman; My wife is thinking about selling her 53 Champion. She has a Sky Hawk she really likes so doesn't drive the Champion.
You should buy the shop manual and the chassis parts catalog. They are available from all the Studebaker vendors. The parts catalog lists every part, gives the part number and the "official" name of the part.
The finned drums are designed to dissipate more heat before the brakes fade. You should not have a finned drum on one side and a non-finned drum on the other side. The finned and non-finned drums are interchangeable with the aforementioned caveat.
I recommend you first disassemble, and inspect all components for serviceability. You may find the drums are still OK, or just need turning. If you need front drums, they are very common nowadays, left overs from folks who converted to front discs. Serviceable rear drums, with hubs attached may be harder to find. Alternately, you could buy new rear drums, and take the new and old ones to a machine shop, to have the hubs swapped over, but that can be expensive. New rear drums, and most everything else is available from our Studebaker vendors. You can machine late 1960s-early 1970s Ford Mustang drums to fit. (I recently did that.) But if you add in the cost of machining, it is easier and as cheap to just buy the right drums from a Stude vendor.
Generally, you will not need new springs, clips, retainers, etc., as those parts do not wear out. If the shoes are dry, riveted on (not glued on), and serviceable, they may be better at stopping the car than anything you can buy nowadays. This is due to the older materials being no longer available.
I agree with Roy that you should buy the shop manual. You gave all the parts numbers, so I assume you own the parts book for your year, or should own it.
I agree that you need to take it apart to see exactly what is needed. I just did my 1950 that I brought home a few weeks ago, and it also pulled to the left, so I knew the right front was stuck and it needed brake work. I honed all 4 wheel cylinders and the master cylinder and had to replace one spring, 2 clips, and a rear brake flex hose. My shoes and drums were good as new.
Take pictures as soon as the drum is removed. This will help if you forget how something went together. I always give the complete system a flush and use DOT5 silicone brake fluid, as it doesn't absorb moisture like the old DOT3.
The local brake shop didn't have the exact rear flex hose for my car, but they did have one an inch longer, and that worked fine.
Sorry if I didn't make myself clear. The point I was trying to make in my post is that the rear drums came off without having to remove anything with a puller. The drums and hubs were not together as an assembly, the drums themselves came off, and the hubs didn't have to be pulled from the axle ends. Don't know why. Just repeating what the mechanic told me when I told him he'd need a puller and he told me he didn't need one after the job was done. Mmmmmm?
Someone in the past has replaced the drums and not had them properly attached onto the hubs. They are simply using the wheel lugs to locate the drum and the wheel to secure it. It's not what Studebaker design was, but a lot of people have done this. There is a chance that the drums are not properly centered. It seems like you're OK with the brakes, so it must be pretty close to perfect. It does make brake jobs and checking brakes a lot easier.
Everyone has mentioned that you need a puller for the rear drums, but no one has told you where to get one. Go to Studebakerparts.com and click on the Tools link on the right side. You can buy one for $125 (my recommendation) or you can rent one for the cost of shipping each way with a $100 deposit.
Christian, here are the specifications for the 1962 brake system. As I suspected, the front wheel secondary shoe linings are thicker than the others. If you want some extra braking power, you can even use the police & taxi specifications. Here is the link to Graham Gagné: https://www.kgworks.ca/studeparts/. He has always been very helpful to me.
If you happen to know where there is still an Actual Brake Re-lining Shop that will Custom Re-line your shoes and sell Retail you MAY get choices for Materials and Length, Thickness etc. but that is very rare today.
Well, of course, I don't know anything about the current brake relining business in the USA or the Canada. But, in France, brake shops still reline your brake shoes per your specifications. Tne very best one is SCIN: http://www.restauration-frein.fr/ They can even use rivets instead of bonding, if you prefer. I assumed wrongly that you could get the same material as we do here. I wonder why you can't, though. One of the reasons I mentioned this very point to Christian is that I overlooked this point when I did my own brakes. I wish i did not of course.
Turning drums is not only to clean up the shoe contact surface, it is also to address warp age, as drums tend to become out of round. That is why, some that have been turned will be visibly off center. No problem with new/repro 10" drums for the rear of our V8 Studes, as our vendors have plenty of them. It is also easy to install a very common, 1960s-1970s FoMoCo, 10" front drum, on the rear of our V8 Studes, with a little machining. As for the 11" rears, I installed a pair from a less common 1960s FoMoCo onto the 63GT. Again, just needed to machine a bit. As for the fronts, they are thick on the ground, left over from the many disc brake conversions, going on for the past 2+ decades.
I say, if the drums need turning, we should either turn them, or buy new ones, if they are worn beyond spec.
Much more frustrating for me, is the lack of materials, and workmanship, which is obviously still available in France, per Christophe's posts above.
I'm still confused about my rear brakes. My 1962 GT is a 289 cid V-8, automatic transmission car with a 3.31 differential (read from tag), and the last assembly date of the car was 23 April 1962. I've only owned the car 2-½ years so I don't have a history on it from 1962-2008.
According to what I've been reading, it is my understanding that 1962 GT rear brake drums come with integral hubs and you need a puller to take them off the ends of tapered axles.
Last July, I decided to have a complete brake job done on the GT, including new drums, since according to my mechanic, the drums had been machined up to 0.090" oversize whereas the Manual shows 0.060" is max. This is one of the new rear drums S-I sent me.
I had ordered a complete brake rebuilding kit (including drums) from S-I and I told them what I had for a car. They sent all the parts to my mechanic's shop and he rebuilt the entire system (excluding the steel brake lines, which still looked pretty good.) I warned him that according to what I had read on the Forum, he'd need a puller to take off the rear drums.
When he finished the job, he told me that he hadn't needed a puller and the drums simply came off. But I kept reading on the Forum that a puller is needed to remove the rear drums on a 1962 GT.
Finally, today I decided to satisfy my curiosity, so I took off the GT left rear wheel to see what's going on. Here's what I found.
The new S-I rear drums that I received did not have integral hubs and were positioned by the flange studs and held onto the end of the axle flange by the tightened lug nuts. Here's what the flange looked like after the new drum was removed today. Is this a so-called "flanged rear axle" and is it supposed to be on a 1962 GT?
I'd appreciate any guidance from our Forum "gurus."
First, new drums do not come with the hubs attached. Two different part numbers that get attached by swedging the wheel studs over the brake drum.
Your axles are stock 62 type, not flanged.
As I stated in an earlier post on this subject, someone has simply put new drums over the wheel studs without swedging them, making them like a flanged axle drum without having the correct machining to center the drum on the axle hub. That being said, many cars have been done this way with no adverse affects. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Thank you for your input "thunderations," but it still doesn't make sense to me. If there was an allowance for swaging (aka "swedging") the drum to a hub there should be a diameter on the hub to which the drum would fit to which it could be swaged. There isn't.
PS: This is exactly what I wound up with, when I installed the FoMoCo drums on the 62GT, mentioned above. They work perfectly, as I am sure yours do.
If the wheel studs were replaced with oversize one to more closely match the holes in the drum, you would never notice the change. I believe the original studs were made to be expanded over the drum and were probably destroyed in the process of removing the original drum from the hub. What you have now is a system that works and I would not attempt to change it back to original.
What you are both saying makes sense now. In other words, S-I is furnishing repro rear drums that fit over the studs without having to do any swaging.
The brakes work fine except for a squeal while backing up because I left the rear shoes with S-I's semi-metallics, but I'm going to "let sleeping dogs lie."
I really do not think you can make that assumption!
They VERY likely copied the Original Drums as much as possible which were always sold as "Drum Only" or the more expensive "Hub and Drum Assembly" like the 11 Inch Finned 289 FRONT Drum and Hub Assy's. that S.I. sells.
So I am pretty sure these Drums were designed to have swagged Studs as Original, but your's may be modified.
The thing that is different about older Car drums than newer ones, is they DO NOT center on a Ridge on the Hub like you were expecting these to do.
They Center on the 5 Studs, and that is why installing them any other way than original there is a good chance they will not be centered on the Axle.
But as you have been told here, if a Machinist modified something like oversize Studs, your Car may be fine, but NO it is Not Stock, if you care what is behind your Wheels.
One more quick question about OEM 1962 GT rear brake drums from someone who hasn't seen one.
Is the hub made from cast iron, the finned drum outer diameter also cast iron, and the "web" in-between made of stamped steel, and the three parts welded together as one assembly? Or is the entire drum with a hub all one casting?
I can't tell from the Chassis Catalog drawing.
Hub is a steel forging. Drum is cast iron. Web is a steel stamping. That was the normal way to do it back in the day: Packard, Hudson, Nash, Chrysler corp etc etc all did it the same way.
That's the way I pictured it as well, Ross. Thanks.
NO, the HUB is NOT Welded to the Web and Drum (ring). The SWAGGED Studs is what holds the Hub to the Drum.