I'd like to pick up a machine for my own personal use, but i may consider turning it  into a sideline swapmeet business. Thoughts on this machine? It is 30 miles from me. Are there any attachments and stuff that i would regret not having? Can i get more of the sanding belts easily?. I really know nothing about these machines.


https://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/tls/d/ammco-890-brake-shoe-grinder/6617549105.html

I believe they are illegal in Ca. You might want to check in Washington..

56 Vic, B'Ville 200 MPH Club Member, So Cal.

Laws are the least of my worries. They can come and take it!

It's my understanding the arc machines were never illegal as such, but the ventilation requirements and disposal imposed to continue use were extensive. So the machines went away by default. It's also my understanding that a selection of oversize shoe linings were kept on hand and fitted to drums that had been turned to a larger diameter, arc'd on the machine, and the result were good brakes right away, without customer comebacks. It was part and parcel at the time of a good brake job.

You can kind of see this if you take a new lining and fit it to an old drum, it may not have a full contact, just a small area in the center.

For the next brake job, I plan to apply sandpaper to the drum with double-sided tape, and rotate it back & forth by hand while gradually tightening the shoe adjustment (?).
Does anyone still sell shoes with oversized linings? Might save considerable effort.

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA

If that works, it will result in a shoe with a smaller radius than the drum, when you figure in the thickness of the double sided tape and sand paper itself.


Lawrenceville, GA

Back in the late 60's early 70's I used to run 1 of those at an autoparts store I worked at. We arched all the shoes we sold if you had us cut the drums.

The bag filter on that machine  did a terrible job of filtering the dust that I would assume had some asbestos content, we later vented it to outside and used to dust all the cars in the rear parking lot.

It's a wonder that I do not have Lung Cancer

When I ran one of them back in the '70s, we set the machine to grind the shoes at an .030 smaller radius than the drum.  We did not want the tips of the shoes to contact the drum before the center did, it would cause the brakes to grab.  The double sided tape and sandpaper method might work just fine.  I still have a machine, but don't use it anymore.

John - "The Hoosier Hurricane"

I've read mention of taking a rough hand file to the ends of the linings, do you think this would work about as well and be worth doing?

Since there are two contributors posting on this thread with brake parts service experience, I would like to explore the issue of ‘drum turning’:
The original drums & hubs were staked together as a unit. My components (and most all replacements) are separated. I assume the lathe machine is setup to handle either configuration (?). When drums/hubs are installed on the spindle, I find even freshly turned drums are never perfectly centered (shoe contact varies as drum is rotated) when bolted back on the hub. So, I wonder if my sandpaper/tape concept might also work beneficially in reverse? Since the shoe contact area is really the only relevant part of drum that needs to be concentric/roughed, why not also apply the sandpaper to the shoe, and hand-rotate the drum (assuming the paper/tape thickness could be minimized)? If the drums are not seriously gouged or warped, would they really need to be turned?

6 VOLTS/POS. GRD. NW INDIANA