Early Brake Drum on Late Chassis

[Mike Sal]

I'm trying to mate a '66/67 rear drum onto my '70 chassis. I bought brand new drums (they have the correct appearance I'm looking for) & the spacer needed to go under the nut. I've also removed .180 thou from the front edge of the brake shoes. I was also going to remove about an 1/8" from the inside corner of the brake drum to ensure no interference between the shoe & the drum. However, the drum is extremely hard in the corner area & my regular tool steel cutters (in the lathe) won't touch it. I don't have any carbide cutters long enough to reach into the corner of the drum. The drum must be selectively annealed, as a file will easily nick the outer edge where the shoes run.

Has anyone else had any experience in cutting the inside face of the brake drums?
thanks,
Mike S

[ashman40]

I thought installing earlier style rear drum brakes on later rear axles only required:

install early brake shoes
install early drum
install spacer between drum and axle nut (to allow for longer splined length of later axles)

Why are you trying to use later style brake shoes? Wouldn't using the brake shoes that match the drum avoid the need to mod the drum? You will loose braking surface, but that is the cost of this mod.

If you wanted to keep the wide-5 pattern and the wider brake shoes, look at the early 70's Thing. These Type1s basically came with later style brake shoes but kept the wide-5 lug pattern.
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AshMan40
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'67 Beetle #1 {project car that never made it to the road }
'75 Beetle 1200LS (RHD Japan model) {junked due to frame rot}
'67 Beetle #2 {2019 project car - Wish me luck!}

[EVfun]

You missed a couple of parts.

install early backing plates
install early wheel cylinders
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[jsnwelch]

Are you trying to swap over to the wide-5 bolt pattern or something? If so I thought you could just use Thing rear drums for that?

[EVfun]

That is the easiest way. The drums tend to be a bit expensive and they will widen the rear track a little. I think there also some aftermarket drums to do the conversion that don't increase the track width.
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[Danpa]