Hello, Sorry if this is the wrong forum to ask this. I have aluminum front brake drums on my car and one of them is starting to crack out from one of the stud holes. My question is are these drums hard to find? If they are still around what are they getting for price on them? I like the light weight of them but I may just go to NAPA and get a set of steel drums for it. The thought of a drum comming apart at the finish line doesn't thrill me! :3gears: Tom
You can find them here on the board from time to time and on ebay. If you go to the bone yards, some of the G-bodies cars had them. You can usually spot them because they're not all rusted. Good hunting.
Yo, Phil, he said front brake drums!ou: I think you will have a very hard time finding al. frt drums. I am amazed you are running frt drums. Go with discs. There is a reason Buick and GM mandated disc brakes on 455 A-body cars in 1971. Ever notice that ALL GM A-bodies from 73-up use disc brakes?????uzzled:
Hello, I know I should just go to disk brakes, I don't have the cash to get all new stuff so I need to find a car to get them off of. I also have manual brakes, My cam is to big to run power brakes I think and I might end up with a bigger cam yet in it. I just want to make it safe as possible for right now and seeing the crack in on of the drums was not cool. I also have aluminum drums on the back from some mid 80s car, they have been holding up good. Tom
How much of a hurry are you in? I'm waiting on a disc brake setup; when I'm done with that I'll have two perfectly good drums off my car that are ready for another home. I'll sell 'em at a fair price, but it might be a month or so, though. -- Steve
Manual, Alum drums all the way around is the hot ticket for NHRA Stock elim.....but yes they are becoming hard to find. Maybe someone who did a conversion has some......
Hi Steve, I am not in a huge hurry for a drum. The car is apart at the moment so I can get a roll bar in it, which is close to being done, but the next few weekends we are going to be doing other things so I won't be racing the car for awhile anyway. Can I email you for a price? Or you can email me. [edit] Just a little side note, I like the manual brakes for drag racing, for me it is better for staging the car as I have to go in kinda deep to get a decent reaction time and I find it is easyer to bump in the car a little at a time than cars I have raced with power brakes. My home track has a short shut down to make the turn off, so it is hard on my drum brakes, they tend to heat up and fade, we can go past the turn off if something goes wrong but is a pain to get turned around to get off the track. The 2 other tracks I race on once in a while have very long shut down areas, they are so long I can just let off the gas and coast to the turn off so the brakes hardly have to do anything at those tracks. I guess I should also ask if any of these cars ever had manual disk brakes? I think someone said to me that some of the 442 Olds did but never heard if Buick or Chevy or Pontiac ever did. Tom
A word of caution, if the drum cracks and comes apart you will lose all braking. Lots of guys have hit the wall racing with AL drums that shattered during the slowdown at the end of the 1/4 mile. If you are seeing cracks get these changed out before you put her back on the road.
are these the same as the 67 alum drums if so I have a set with the 90 fins? I think thats what they are called. What is a fair price for them? Thanks
Tom, don't take this the wrong way, just my opinion: I think you are being penny wise and dollar-foolish. If you have any minor problems, don't you think you will have more than $300 damage to your car???? A complete factory disc brake set-up will not cost more than $300. I think you can get everything new from www.opgi.com for that price. Also, in the brake section of this forum, I have located a vendor which uses 80-5 rear disc brakes from Seville/Eldorado/Tornado to mount to our corporate 8.5" rears. Looks like that will not run more than $300. He also carries some brkts to adapt disc brakes from other models. Visit www.scarebird.com and see if that interests you. The only reason I make these suggestions, is the drum brake fade happened to me while I was going to college. Was driving back from a weekend visit home, heading north on I-75 doing about 80-85 when traffic came to a halt. Well, I applied the brakes and they started to fade. Ended up going into the median for about 40 yards before coming to a stop. That was the worst feeling I had in my 72 Skylark 350 coupe. NEVER EVER again will I drive any car with front drum brakes. This is one of those life pass-before-your-eyes events you will never forget!ou: Once you have an accident or mishap and then total your repairs, that disc brake set-up or 4 wheel disc set-up will seem awfully cheap! Reminds me of the saying "Never time to do it right but always time to do it over!" Wish you the best of luck!:TU:
I could be wrong, but I think NHRA outlawed the aluminum drums a couple years back, after a Stock Eliminator racer had an *incident* at an event with them. Check the latest rulebook. JH
Sounds like I should just put on some steel drums till I can find the stuff to put disks on it. I think I still want manual brakes with front disks but I am not sure they ever cam that way. Tom
I have a 69 Vette that has manual four wheel discs. So, you can get manual disc brakes. The difference between drums and discs is the bore diameter in the master cylinder. Drum master's have a 1" bore and disc master's have a 1.125" bore. Let me know if you can find the steel drums in your area. I have set here but shipping may be expensive.
I was going to see if NAPA in town here can get steel drums, They more or less sponcer me for racing and they also give me a good price on stuff I buy from them, so unless the price is crazy I might just get a couple new steel ones if the aluminum ones are not safe. Tom
