Slick 60's

I would have to say amen too. The only time that I ever drove my 66 was to put it into the garage after I took it off the dolly I brought it home on. The brakes where very weak, I figures if I put some railroad ties on the floor in the garage and just idled it in, I could stop on the ties with my weak brakes. See where this is going? At an idle, I hoped the ties and hit my bench, I thought I was going to go through the wall, but it just flexed and my benchabsorbed the shock as the fot rest I built at the front snaped. I will be doing at least a dual master cylinder and disks as I put it back together. I had good working single master cylinder drum brakes on my Galaxie and I changed them over to power disks after my life flashed before my eyes a few times.

Skip is right, brakes are important.
usually the first thing i get into on any used vehicle i buy to drive.

my 66 still has and always will have its drums ,it is a 4x4 closed knuckle and i would never swap it for a later open front end.however all of the parts were new or rebuilt when i redid the truck.i also converted to the dual mc.
i would reccommend that you do the dual mc and all the new lines at the same time, it is easy and when your done its a big improvement.

you can argue disc vs drum and prices all day long but there is nothing wrong with a drum brake system that is properly maintained.

did i mention the nearest traffic light is 45 miles away?

cdherman wrote:Amen

For them that can't get disc brakes, I would point out that skip was not saying that drums had to go, just the old lines and rubber parts. New lines, a dual cylinder master, careful turning of the drums and understanding how drum brakes work will get you good enough brakes for your usual driving.

Just careful in special situations, like towing, downhill runs, drag racing and water.......

I agree. When done correctly, drum brakes can be good for average driving chores. It's the extreme situations that really show the difference between drum & disc.

When my Son brought home his '65, it had one frozen front wheel cylinder & a leaky rear. It would try to yank you off the road every time you hit the brakes halfway hard.
We rebuilt all 4 wheel cylinders, flushed the lines, replaced one drum (it was too thin), turned the rest, installed new shoes all the way around, adjusted all 4 wheels the way they should be & it stops great! The previous owner had installed a new master cylinder & front brake lines before we got it.
I was actually quite surprised, to be honest, how well that thing actually stops! It stops very straight & fairly quickly, too. It's the only 4-wheel drum vehicle I've driven that's stopped that well.
Oh, we also replaced the rag joint that was about 3 more uses away from totally tearing in half!

The funny thing is, about 3 months later, we had the opportunity to get a non-running 76 F150 for $400...we snagged it for all it's good parts.