Brakes: Trust vs. age - bonded brake linings.

[oilnsteel]

Ever since the bonded linings became unbonded on my father's Plymouth station wagon descending Pike's Peak, our family has been suspicious of bonded brake linings.
He did get it stopped with a certain amount of damage to the sheet metal on one side.

By what standards would you reject new bonded linings? Age? Any evidence of moisture on box or shoe corrosion?

JT

[Hawklover]

If you can I would sent your old shoes out to be re-lined with riveted friction material. Last moth I installed re-lined riveted shoes on my Avanti. The bonded shoes I removed were cracked, crazed, and shot.........portions of the friction material were actually missing from the shoes.

[Lark Hunter]

Mmm... I can't remember having any failures due to bonded linings letting go, though I have seen a few accounts of linings coming loose... sometimes wedging between the second lining and the drum and dragging vehicle to a stop. I have had the rivets on linings that I was trying to squeeze the last bit of life out of, dig into the drum and score the heck out of it... and they did so quietly enough that I didn't hear the damage occurring .

Seems like a six/half dozen kind of thing, so I don't really have a preference... one thing I consider these days is the quality of the part to start with. I've noticed that a lot of parts that come from a so called FLAPS, can be of fair-to-unacceptable quality. It seems like the mainstream manufacturers shuffle off the slower moving stuff (like parts for older cars) to the lowest bidder who will put something in the box that roughly resembles the original part. I'd be more inclined to trust stuff that was re-lined by a known company, whether riveted or bonded. I worked on a 1933 Franklin, and shoes were redone by Midwest Brake iirc.

I have encountered corrosion caused by magnesium chloride that really chewed up some brake pads on my daily driver, but that was when they were in use, and it removed chunks of the wear surface instead of getting between the friction material and metal backing.

[StudeRich]

Magnesium Chloride ? Did you drive it in a Nuclear Power Plant Site or WHAT?

[Lark Hunter]

StudeRich - It's an equally nasty alternative to road salt that has a voracious appetite for copper (it wicks its way into any insulation breaches in wiring and quickly turns it to green powder) and does evil things to most other metals. They started using it heavily in my home state of Montana in the early 2000's instead of sand and gravel... cars would probably last longer if they spread granulated Chernobyl on the roads instead.

[E. Davis]

Lark hunter is not kidding. This mag-chloride crap will eat the concrete in your garage if you let your car drip it off on the floor. I always knock as much of it off as I can out on the street. Kiss your chrome goodbye if it is left to set on it for any length of time. Really, really nasty stuff. Lots of people have an old "winter" car they drive because of it.

[Hawklover]

I make this statement and do not have a dog in the fight...........for 50 years I have purchased almost all of my Studebaker parts from Jon Myer. Only two times in all those years did I have a problem with either the part or its application..........replacements were always shipped the same week.

[jts359]

I have only seen bonded shoes come apart twice in over 50 years , Both times in the rear. I wonder if leaving the Emergency brake on might have something to do with it , Admit it ! We have all done it , Ed

[Hallabutt]

I agree that heat may be the culprit. Since heat is about the only way to remove bonded linings safely, it seems that overheating the bonding agent would degrade it. I don't know what part moisture might also play in the process, but it seems plausible to me that once the integrity of the bonding agent is degraded, rust would continue to migrate.

[bensherb]

I've had bonded linings become un-bonded twice. All four on my tractor, and two on the rear of one of my motorcycles. Both vehicles are early 70's antiques for which I couldn't find replacement shoes, so I cleaned them up and bonded the linings back on with JB Weld. That was over 5 years ago and both are still doing fine.
Your results may vary! I love JB Weld, use it all the time, at least twice a week (engineer/welder/machinist/fabricator/model maker/gunsmith, by trade the last 37 years), and have never had it fail. My dad hates it, and says he can never get it to stick to anything. I have no idea what he's doing to make it not stick to anything , but he's pretty good at making infallible things not work.

[Gunslinger]

I always understood that it took a better quality lining to take a rivet than bonding glue…but that’s when asbestos was the lining of choice. With materials used today I have no idea how they’re attached.

[yeroldad]

After many years in the business, the only bonded shoes I've seen that came apart were burned up, for whatever reason, like bad adjustment.