VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1937-1945 Turning Drums

Seems like such a common question that it has to have been asked and answered, but my search skills must be too limited to produce anything. I need to have my drums turned and am looking for the simplest method anyone has come up with. Right now I only have the front drums off and am being told that I will have to remove the hub. Is there any specialty shop I can take them to as is without going through that?

If I have to remove the hub, is it just a matter of driving out the lugs-or are the three guides I see really 3 special rivets? According to the manuals, I will need 2 gaskets per hub, will I need to do anything with the deflector? Appreciate any help.

Eli

I have had the front drums trued up (turned) twice on my '40 and did not have to remove the drums from the hubs. I did have to take the bearings out. You want to keep track of where they belong. Any good machine shop should be able to turn the drums on the hubs. If we can do it in Shreveport surely you Texans can do it.

We commonly sent front drums with the hub attached for turning years ago.
I would check around and find a place that is able to do it with the hubs.


If you do not have such luck, removing the rivets is all you need to do. When resaembling just forget the rivets and slide the drum over the studs like Chevrolet did beginning in 1960.

Anytime I have had a front drum turned they wanted them mounted on the hub. I would remove the bearings but leave the races in the hub. Aren't your drums mounted on the inside of the hub? That would mean that you would have to remove the studs to separate the two. You don't want to have to do that without a good reason.

During my apprenticeship I turned many drums. The machine I used had adapters for drums and rotors with or without hubs. If the hub was fitted it is better to have the outer race of both bearings as that is the centreing point.
Tony

I definitely agree I do not want to remove the hub absent a necessity, so thanks everyone for the input. I visited 2 brake shops and one machine shop and all told me the same thing, but based on what you folks are telling me, I am going to keep looking. Thanks for all the input.

By the way, I took the bearings out before I even left the garage, just thinking about what might otherwise happen to them made me pucker.

I think you will find the problem is the ball type wheel bearing instead of tapered wheel bearings.

Eli,

I think you have your answer. You should be able to get them turned without removing the hubs.

If you can't find a shop to do it, run them over to Louisana.

Best,
Charlie

BTW: " If we can do it in Shreveport surely you Texans can do it." Mike. You may be giving them there Texans too much credit.

Eli, I'm surprised you found three places.

We have multitudes of auto repair shops around here but only one still turns disks and drums. Did any of the three measure the drums to see if they are viable candidates? 0.070" (over 11") is a far as they can go, then you have to remove the hubs to replace the drums. No need to replace the rivets or gaskets, the lug nuts will hold the wheel and new drum on just fine.

No, none of them got beyond looking at the hub to say "I can't do it" to bother with measuring. One fella said they stopped turning brakes years ago, with people like O'Reilly's doing it now, they just couldn't compete. I'm sure those folks are fine with routine jobs, but I am not interested in turning over a vintage piece to someone whose training consists of 39 hours of inventory control and 1 hour of how to set the specs on an automatic machine.

Anyway, thanks to all the advice, I kept looking until I found an old school machine shop, when I walked in he greeted me with "That looks like an old Chevy, whattya got a 36 or so?" and I knew I hit the jackpot. Picking them up later today.

Hi Eli,

Here is a link to a fine post on using the SEARCH function on our chat site. Search Function Tips

Glad things worked our so well on your brake drums. Sounds like you found a shop that would appreciate all the work you having been doing to maintain your car. Make sure you drive your car over to them and show it off when you get it back on the road.

Good luck, Mike

Thanks for the Tips, Mike.

You'll appreciate this, the last thing he said when I picked them up was to be sure to drive over so he could take a picture.