I don't know if what I'm seeing in the new drums I've bought this year is typical, or is reflecting some sort of manufacturing change.

I've bought 3 pairs of drums (these are 11 inch). First pair (for the front wheels) was a china brand "WinHere". Put them on, car shook really badly during braking. Took them to a shop, got them turned, they say one was worse than the other. Put them back on, ok braking seems better, car is mostly smooth on the highway but I do notice some vibration at a couple different speeds (my new tires / rims have already been balanced). I have the tire shop put these new drums on their wheel balancer (Hunter Road Force). Took some arm twisting, but they did it (had never done this before). One drum needed 2.25 oz, the other needed .75 oz. Tire shop put the sticky tick-tak weights on them. Here's the thing - these drums originally had no balance weights. New drums, no weights. I take the sticky weights off and weld some metal hunks to them. Drums are great on the highway, no vibration, but brake pulsing is back (I think it was coming back before this). I think it's the same drum that needed a lot of turning the first time. I take that drum off, put on one of my original drums (it has weights, all my original drums have weights). Car braking is great, highway is great.

I buy 2 new pairs of drums from rock. Raybestos. One pair for the front, one for the rear. I get them. NONE OF THEM HAVE ANY BALANCE WEIGHTS. I'm going to have to shell out probably $100 a pair to have these drums checked (put on a lathe) because I don't necessarily trust them. And then I'm going to have to pay another maybe $25 each to have them checked for balance at the tire shop - if they remember me and I convince them to do it.

Is it me? Am I wrong to think that there's no way that drums come off the production line perfectly balanced, needing no weights? These are 11 inch, not 9 or 10 inch drums. They are heavy.

Is this a new thing for drums today, this year? Or would I have had this exact same experience 5, 10 years ago?

My feeling is that old car parts quality is going down the drain, year by year. After all that work, and probably more messing around to come, I would recommend switching your car to disc brakes. Doctordiff.com has some nice offerings. I'm happy to talk disc upgrades if you have questions. I have 5 old Mopars with Slant 6s, and all of them now have 4 whl disc brakes with easily source-able parts.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Some folks will avoid new parts for the old Drum Systems when possible.

Try Craig mobile parts in NY.

He may talk your ear off, but he has good parts to sell.

https://www.forcbodiesonly.com/mopar-fo ... rts.54251/


Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

It is not only old car parts or even recent parts. About 10 years ago a ford 15 passenger van ended up in front of me with a complaint of vibration at highway speed, the van was about 5 years old at the time. It shook a lot. It had got repeated wheel balances and rotates trying to figure it out. Road force told nothing of note.

Spin the front tires in the air and they always stopped with the same spot at the top. It wasn't very obvious with the big heavy load rated wheel in place but with just the brake rotor you could watch it slow down and speed up as the heavy spots started going up or down the arc. It was both front rotors and both front rotors were brand new. I didn't do anything else with else so I don't know how much weight they needed.

At this point unless I was going with a original style show car I would just upgrade to discs on anything that has available kits for it.

Poor quality drums goes back farther than the OP suggests...
I am gonna be looking for a pair soon for an 83 D250. Gonna be searching eBay for a set that has lots of dust on them. Gotta get it home from my kids house so I can see which ones it has . 12x2-1/2, 12&1/8x2, 12x3....

No. Parts quality even for current/recent-model cars is in the toilet, let alone for old cars which generate little-to-negative revenue (our cars statistically do not exist; the only reason why a supplier keeps parts for them in their line is to pad their vehicle-coverage percentage / unique-SKU count to try to win favour with sales channels). There's less money to be made in replacement parts than there used to be, for some fairly obvious reasons. And the auto parts industry is the same as all others in being bought up by hedge funds* and private-equity firms whose one and only priority is to wring maximum money out of the companies they buy, in the shortest possible time. The only thing that matters more to them than this week's "numbers" (money extracted) is whether next week's numbers can be bigger or if it's time to spit out the bones and leave them to rot.

I am glad to have experienced the old-car hobby when it was still generally possible to take a choice of readily (or at least reasonably) available new parts in good quality. I am sad to have experienced the end of that.

*"Hedge fund" is one of those terms that is just always going to sound scummy and scammy to me.

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