Squeaky Wheel…

Listen to this video… you’ll see what I am talking about.

I took off the drums, ground down the edges of the weights on the drum so they won’t touch the Cragars any more. Put the drum back on. Ran the car – crap – still squeaks. I took the drum off and ground down the edges of the metal part of the brake shoes a few thousandths. Put the drum on. Still squeaks. Must be the brake shoes themselves. Then I put the wheel back on and turned the tire… yeah there’s a section where it gets harder to turn and a section where it practically free wheels. Hmm. I did notice that if I applied the brakes just a tad the squeaking goes away. Ok… so… raised the back of the car way up, got under it, adjusted the brake shoe on that wheel so its a bit tighter. Jammed a spare tire under the passenger side wheel, started the car up, put it in D. Passenger tire turns while idling… and no squeak! Woo hoo!

So this means the shoe or drum got warped when we put the Cragars on that drum and tightened it down without realizing that drum had weights on it. We trimmed some height off those weights on Keven’s metal lathe but I think the damage was already done. I’m going to run it as it is now since eventually I’m going to get a whole new rear end and driveline anyway. At least there is no embarrasing squeak now.

I also added some battery hold downs and put on a coolant overflow recovery kit.  They are required to run the car at the track.

Some pictures…