Re: Drum Brakes - Drilling Drums


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Posted by Drew M. on Friday, January 26, 2001 at 1:30PM :

In Reply to: Re: Drum Brakes - Drilling Drums posted by John Waak on Friday, January 26, 2001 at 8:53AM :

From Merrill's December 22, 1998 posting (w/ slight editing):


After the discussion settled down on my post about drilling brake drums for venting and improving the performance of the brakes, I sent an E-mail to the company that was referred to in the article that got my curiosity up. Within a couple days, I received a phone call from Vince, who owns the company, C.H. Topping Co., in Long Beach, California. In the E-mail, I had asked four questions which seemed to be representative of the ones brought up in the follow up to the original posting. Those Questions and answers that he gave follow:

1) What effect does drilling the friction surface of the drum have on shoe wear with regard to scoring or ridging the shoe surface, or shortening the life of the shoes? Actually nearly doubles shoe life, does not dig into friction surface.
2)Do the holes present a potential place for a crack to start or do they weaken the drum? This procedure has been used since the 1950s on drum brakes on many different sorts of racing vehicles, from the Pan American racing Lincolns of the mid fifties, to off-road racers of the modern stripe. There has never been a case of drum failure attributable to this procedure. Based on experience, the drilling has not promoted cracking, nor has it weakened the drums.
3) Do the holes admit debris such as sand or mud or become plugged up easily during off road use such as mud running or sand duning? The drums do not collect crud through the holes, except the result of sitting emmersed in a water or mud hole for a period of time and as soon as the wheels start turning, the drums clear themselves. Drums will not retain crud and actually run cleaner than non-drilled drums. Wet performance is dramatically improved as well, as the water that does get in is expelled by centrifugal force.
4) Do you do business by mail and/or freight? Yes.

The company has a website at :www.chtopping.com.
Their E-mail address is: chtop@earthlink.net





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