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TucsonJim's avatar
TucsonJim
Explorer II
Mar 14, 2017

Odd Brake Shoe Failure. Any Ideas?

Since I'm retired, I like to keep busy and help family and friends with RV maintenance items from time to time. This time, I volunteered to inspect the brakes on my son's 12 year old pop up and repack the bearings for him. He had the brakes replaced about six years ago, and has maybe put 3000 miles on it during that time.

When I inspected the brakes, there were cracks running parallel to both rear brake shoes. I've seen brake shoes crack laterally before, but never radially like the ones pictured here:





I inspected the drums and they were within size tolerance and there were no hot spots indicated. Since they were okay, I don't think heat was the issue.

I've ordered replacement brake assemblies and will be installing them as soon as they arrive. BTW, the assemblies I ordered were self adjusting and not the cheap manual adjusting brakes he had.

Have any of you ever seen a similar failure? If so, is there a likely cause?

As a side note, I'm also going to replace his bearings, races and the cheap brake wire connectors you can see pictured in the photos.

Jim
  • Beverley_Ken's avatar
    Beverley_Ken
    Explorer
    Mar 14, 2017
    Yes, sort of. About 4 or 5 years ago I had to replace the pads on the E450, there were lines like that irregular shape and in the thickness, causing big chunks of pad material to flake off, pads were near new thickness, no signs of overheating but had to be replaced. Mechanic said that it was a defect or contaminate in Ford OEM pad material. Also about 25 years ago, we had to replace the pads on the Ford Ranger, big holes in the pad material, mechanic then said that it was not uncommon, again a contaminate, causing sections to dissipate.

    Ken
  • agesilaus's avatar
    agesilaus
    Explorer III
    Mar 14, 2017
    Just an aside. We found it cheaper and easier (by far) to just replace the whole brake assembly. I think it was $40. A could of bolts was all that holds it on.
  • TucsonJim's avatar
    TucsonJim
    Explorer II
    Mar 14, 2017
    That makes sense ken. I was leaning towards a manufacturing defect in the brakes also. I just wanted to make sure I'm not missing an underlying problem. I think turning the drums and replacing the brake components will resolve the issues.

    As an aside, when he had the dealer change the brakes, they sold him a "life time" brake package. Unfortunately, the dealer (Beaudry RV) went out of business a couple of months later.

    Jim
  • TucsonJim's avatar
    TucsonJim
    Explorer II
    Mar 14, 2017
    time2roll wrote:
    Typical of bonded shoes. Run them another 12 years.


    Not with my grandchildren in the car he won't! Not to mention the safety of motorists around him.

    Jim
  • Old-Biscuit's avatar
    Old-Biscuit
    Explorer III
    Mar 14, 2017
    This only occurred on the secondary shoes (rearward ones) and NOT on smaller primary shoes??

    Primary shoes get most of the heat due to being first to make contact and that contact force has to increase to activate rear shoe engagement


    Were dust caps missing on bottom of drum?
    Does your son do much dirt road/off road driving?
    Seen similar scoring from dirt/grit but it was on ALL brake shoes.

    Otherwise.....HEAT causes most cracking.

    DId you have to back off adjuster a LOT to get drum off?
  • time2roll's avatar
    time2roll
    Nomad
    Mar 14, 2017
    TucsonJim wrote:
    time2roll wrote:
    Typical of bonded shoes. Run them another 12 years.
    Not with my grandchildren in the car he won't! Not to mention the safety of motorists around him.
    Nothing wrong with new shoes, hardware etc.
    Can you get shoes that are riveted instead of bonded?

    As long as you are replacing most of it have you considered disk brakes?
  • TucsonJim's avatar
    TucsonJim
    Explorer II
    Mar 14, 2017
    Old-Biscuit wrote:
    This only occurred on the secondary shoes (rearward ones) and NOT on smaller primary shoes??

    Primary shoes get most of the heat due to being first to make contact and that contact force has to increase to activate rear shoe engagement


    Were dust caps missing on bottom of drum?
    Does your son do much dirt road/off road driving?
    Seen similar scoring from dirt/grit but it was on ALL brake shoes.

    Otherwise.....HEAT causes most cracking.

    DId you have to back off adjuster a LOT to get drum off?


    Yes, just the secondary shoes. The others were in great shape.
    Dust plugs were in place.
    This is not "scoring". It's king of hard to see in the pics, but the cracks appear to go all the way to the base metal of the shoe surface.
    And he does drive down a dirt road from time to time, but most travel is on paved surfaces.
    I did not have to back of the adjuster at all to get the drums off. The brakes were snug, but not too tight.
  • All_I_could_aff's avatar
    All_I_could_aff
    Explorer
    Mar 14, 2017
    How about these shoes on the back of a 1995 ford 150. Truck had 120,000 miles and still had retaining clips keeping drum on studs. I was checking/cleaning/adjusting the rears for the owner about 6 months ago! Believe it or not, he declined replacement.

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