Quote:
Originally Posted by Short 3/4
My guess is that you have the original housing and someone replaced the entire brake assembly in the rear with the 13’s. It’s really easy to do, I actually have 11” drums on the rear of mine that I pulled off my old 2wd to get the truck running while I was looking for the correct parts. I now have the right stuff, but always have something better to do than replace parts that are working. Probably someone in your trucks past wanted bigger rear brakes, or more likely couldn’t find the 4x4 parts so went to the local wrecking yard and made something work. The 12” rear drums were only used on 4x4’s for 60-66, never 2wd, so parts were always uncommon. There is an interesting thread somewhere on this forum that talks about all the brake interchanges possible for the HO rear ends. As I remember you can even swap brakes from a Dana 60, so seeing the “wrong” parts on a 50+ year old truck is not so unusual.
Anyway, this is a very long winded way of saying you have a lot of options for drums if you can just manage to also find the corresponding back plate and hardware.
Hope this helps
Tom
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Thanks again Tom for your words. Likely the brakes were switched somehow. As you said, the 4x4 had 12 inch brakes from the factory so something got changed. I am of the opinion that the entire rear was swapped with one from a C30 one ton that had single rear wheels, not a dually. I have considered changing the backing plates to the correct size, but I like the idea of the larger brakes, and also I don't want to deal with the bearing oil slinger that is pressed on to the axle that is there to divert leaking oil away from the shoes. This would have to come off as the backing plate will not pass over it. I am sure I could pull it off and push it back on, but as you said, if it is working, then leave it.
In the meantime, I cleaned the first original drum and wire wheeled it, then took it to the local NAPA guy. It measured 13.050. The machinist said max was 13.090 but I argued 13.190, no way to read the "max diameter" marking. I picked it up a couple hours later with 99% of the pits cleaned up - It looks quite serviceable, $26. It will work for now as I continue looking for new parts. Now I will move on to the other side.
Thanks again for your thoughts!