My dart brakes are are awful--even with alot of new parts and the front drums were turned...Pulls heavily to the left on the first application.

Any recommended premium pads i should pick up? where?

All info and feedback appreciated here on this great forum.
HAPPY MOTORING

Drum brakes do not have pads, they have shoes. And (assuming you've got the basic-equipment 9" drums) they're not very good even with everything in perfect condition. Keep in mind brakes have to be bedded-in before they begin to work as well as they're going to. When new shoes are installed and/or drums are turned, only a small part of the shoe contacts the drum until enough wear occurs to conform the shoe's friction material to the drum. Until then, you get weak braking effect and random pulls. There is no magic set of shoes that will transform the brakes radically for the better.

The fix is to dump the drum brakes and install discs. It's expensive, but worth it every single time you step on the brakes and actually get to stop quickly and straight with no drama.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Dan: True.

Also you may have a bad wheel cylinder which will cause pulling.

Back when drum brakes were on 99.9% of vehicles on the road, brake shops has a planning or grinding machine that could change the outer radius of a shoes friction material to conform with a drum that had been turned to a larger radius. This machining of friction material allowed for full contact between the two surfaces, reducing the ill stopping dynamics of miss matched radiuses.

My 2 cents:
Today these machines are not to be found except in a brake shoe museum, scrap heap, or some eccentric obsolete automotive tool hoarder's out building.

The workaround to proper fitting shoes to drums is to not turn old drums, but to install new drums. Or, as Dan said, endure a magical mystery trip every stop resulting in long stop distances, and routine darting left or right willy-nilly until the miss-fitting shoes wear in.

Having driven a Dart with 9" drum brakes back in the early seventies a bazillion miles, the damn things are next to useless as a stopping device. Often when driving close to triple digits (ah to be 20 again), and attempting to aggressively slow down, it was hard to tell the difference between depressing the clutch or brake. Oh, now I remember, stepping on brake made a lot of vibration, clutch no change in noise, and stopping distances were much the same between both pedals. Perhaps this is a bit of an exaggeration, so I just say 9" drums suck in every way possible.

If I had a 9" drum brake A Body today I would avoid as much tight fast moving traffic as possible as I don't think this equipment can be safely driven on today's roads. My opinion is every other vehicle on the road can stop in half the distance even if those 9 inchers are factory fresh.

Take Dan's advice, and install a set of disks, they are cheaper than front end sheet metal.

By the way my 67 Dart came with factory optional K-H disks, and its braking power is close to modern car performance.

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

Dan, any comments on front disk and rear drum? I have 9" drums all the way around and I'm in total agreement, that even in perfect working order, which they are, they probably aren't appropriate for modern driving conditions. I'm a good and experienced driver but still...

So, I'm planning on changing to front disk and larger rear drum 10 x 2.5". Is this sufficient for today's driving or should I take the plunge and go for 4 wheel disc?

Brian

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https://tinyurl.com/yynpj4v2

That's the most cost-effective setup, is front disc/rear drum. Make sure the rear drums are picked and configured appropriately.
Donno where you're planning on finding 10" × 2½" rear drums; that was the spec on the 10" front drums, but the rears were 10" × 1¾", and you would definitely not want to go bigger than that with wider 10" drums or 11" drums, etc. The disc-brake A-bodies tended to lock up the rears prematurely. Fix this with appropriate rear wheel cylinders; see here.

I'm going to resist the urge to post this answer three more times.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Dan: Oh come on Dan, its just electrons, and not like wasting trees and ink... Just two more clicks there Bud, were all on the edge of our chairs awaiting the other two answers. :~)

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67' Dart GT Convertible; the old Chrysler Corp.
82' LeBaron Convertible; the new Chrysler Corp
07' 300 C AWD; Now by Fiat, the old new Chrysler LLC

3 times.......


where?

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Ed
64 Valiant 225 / 904 / 42:1 manual steering / 9" drum brakes

I agree with all who recommend disks. I went to full 4wheel disks which makes the car on a par with modern cars. There are decent disk adoption kits available now, which allows you to keep your current spindles. If you need a front end rebuild anyway, another way to go is to replace the front spindles you have with late A body disk brake spindles. From there you can bolt on the bracket (called the "adapter") from either a late A body or B body disk brake car. The A bodies had a different caliper from the B's.

The A body caliper had metal to metal contact with the adapter which gets noisy, and prone to sticking when worn. The B body calipers had a pin with rubber grommets in the caliper much as nearly all modern street applications. My car has spindles from a '73 Dart, and adaptors and disks from a '73 B body. It drives like a modern car. Keep in mind it also has 15" wheels, heavier shocks, sway bars and larger torsion bars.

One thing to keep in mind is that the front track of a disk brake A body is slightly wider than the drum set up. If it is important to keep the original appearance, then maybe the after market adapter kit is the way to go. The wider front track accentuates the fact the rear is narrower on an A body car.

For what it is worth, my 72 Duster braking got considerably better when I jacked up the front end a little bit so the bump stops did not contact upon applying brakes. It seems when only one side touched, it pulled in that direction.

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I have 4-wheel drums on my '74 Swinger, which I want to be a good daily driver. As far as I know the drums and shoes are original (80K miles). The car stops pretty well, but I'd like to have more confidence in the brakes. So I need to choose between (1) replacing the drums, shoes, and wheel cylinders, and (2) switching to disk brakes. I'd prefer disk. But from what I've seen, if I switch to disk on the front, I'll have to choose between (a) mismatched bolt pattern with now 4.5" front wheels, or (b) replacing the rear end to get the 4.5" bolt pattern there too. This adds up to a hell of a lot of mods, including a new set of wheels.

There's a ton of info out there on the 'net, but it's hard to figure out what applies to my situation. What's the least-impact way to switch to disks in front?

'74 is likely equipped with those big finned 10" drums - these are pretty good brakes. I drove with them for many years and felt that they were more than up to the job. I did finally swap to the 73-76 A-body disc brake set-up and it was a very nice improvement. I have driven two cars with LBP front wheels and SBP rears and did not have any real problem; it offended my sense of symmetry but the extra spare tire was not really a trial. I waited until I had the funds and a good deal came around to swap the rear. (Note: you already have the correct upper control arm needed to hang the 73-76 disc spindles.) Hope this helps.

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. . . there was good sport at his making.

The KH disk brake setup was 5 on 4 like the drum/ drum setup on the early A bodies, so you could go to that and keep your 5 on 4 bolt pattern.

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Dave

1977 d-200 crew cab ex-army pickup wants it's /6 back
1962 Valiant 2 door, 170, three on the tree
1972 d-100 parts truck
80 volare wagon now a parts car

Why would you suggest an obsolete and expensive solution? A scarbird setup would also allow the retention of 5x4"bolt pattern.

Just showing my ignorance of better options. I knew of the kh setup but little about alternative options. I was not trying to say "this is the only option", just that it has been done successfully.

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Dave

1977 d-200 crew cab ex-army pickup wants it's /6 back
1962 Valiant 2 door, 170, three on the tree
1972 d-100 parts truck
80 volare wagon now a parts car