grease in brakes on trailer axle, new shoes?

For the last 50 years all I've done is brake cleaner, toast them with a torch, brake cleaner again and some medium sand paper to remove the glaze. Never had one that differed from new. Today's neophytes think that everything is disposable. What a waste.

Did I mention that I used to be an ASE mechanic.

Ivylog wrote:
After using brake cleaner, I heat them with a torch to force the rest of the oil out of them. Not going to change after 50 years of not replacing just because some oil got on them.

Yep, or the old school method of soaking them in gasoline and then lighting them on fire. (edit: you take the shoes off first, if that's not obvious) Probably not environmentally correct these days. Brake cleaner and some sandpaper on the drums to break up and remove the glaze.

I'm about as frugal as one can be, and am only called a tightwad occasionally, but I would not re-use brakes that were saturated with grease. A little grease on the surface that hadn't been there too long is one thing, grease that has been on there and baked in good, not a chance. Why risk your life for $50? And have to pull the hubs/brakes and such if you don't get it all the first time?

JMO of course.

True, brake material will not contaminate easily, but there's a big difference between that and not contaminate at all. Given the right conditions brake shoes can become thoroughly ruined.

3oaks wrote:

ret usn wrote:
Clean with a good brake cleaner. let dry and clean one more time and should be good.Have had good success with this in the past.

That worked for me also.

Same here. In the commercial world it is done all the time and it does not glaze or otherwise change thier performance.
Once you have personally cleaned them you will understand what people are talking about.
Brake material does not absorb anything well.The grease or oil just sits on the surface and brake cleaner takes 100% of it off.

After using brake cleaner, I heat them with a torch to force the rest of the oil out of them. Not going to change after 50 years of not replacing just because some oil got on them.

Yes! The grease under heat and pressure or just by itself gets into the shoes and will glaze them.
Standard practice is to machine the drums too. The very hot grease gets into the cast iron and if over long enough time you will have to replace the drum.
If disc they are cast iron too.
Don't try to save the pads.

The "correct" answer is to replace the shoes.
But when we were younger and didn't have a lot of money for car repairs and had a rear axle seal leak we'd take take the brake shoes and boil them in a water & soap mix. Just sayin'

I don't cut corners on brakes. I would have new shoes. Not much extra to just swap the entire backing plate with all new hardware preassembled.
Actually I went disc when I felt mine needed service.

I had one set of shoes with grease on them. Cleaned them up and they've worked fine since.

ret usn wrote:
Clean with a good brake cleaner. let dry and clean one more time and should be good.Have had good success with this in the past.

That worked for me also.