95 Chevy 1ton possible steering issues.

[dbrannon79]

I really feel like I royally screwed up by not keeping the original parts and rebuilding them! if only I had dug deeper and of course talking to you guys here first before pulling the trigger on the parts cannon! (holding my head in shame)

I did look up rockauto and they show the same parts and bore sizes. MC 1.25 and HD is 40mm. booster shows pic of my OE one with the little thingiemobob on the return port. and the wheel cylinders with the two options. right now I'm thinking on the booster not only is it not holding a reserve pedal press, but it's not the right one. And I think also my wheel cylinders should be the one with the larger bore. not sure yet on the MC but given the fact that my GVWR is 9000 might consider it a HD class truck. a trip to the dealer might be in order hoping they have the info I need.

I remember back when I was working as a mechanic in the late 90's to mid 2000's we would get GM cars and trucks in that I would see mysterious things on mid 95 models that I considered to be GM's "experimental" parts where they'd send them out from factory with parts that by application didn't call for. later I'd find out they were very common on newer 96 and up vehicles. As if they were testing out stuff before the major model change rollout's. the biggest ones I saw was in the electrical systems on 95's that were "pre" 96 models. some had odb2 connectors but we had to use an adapter on the obd1 snap-on scanner we had to read them!

 

[MrMarty51]

Yup. On the year to year differences.
The larger bore MC will give a lot more movement to the smaller bore rear brake cylinders. It will require more force on the pedal to get the stopping power. Lots of variables can be played with. The larger bore MC with the larger bore brake cylinders wont take as much pedal force to get the same braking power.

 

[Stoney]

Ok . I gotta ask ... What's the thing with Delco sueing Amazon...I missed this??

 

[Will L.]

They were trying to sue them because of all the knock off parts being sold there.
But Amazon isn’t liable so it went no where. Each lawsuit had to be filed against all the individual sellers on Amazon, and they just closed up so there was nothing left to go after.

 

[dbrannon79]

Well guys, I just got back home after stopping by the Chevy dealer. I talked to the parts guy and explained my situation and gave him the vin..... well he told me what I thought and confirmed some part numbers for me

My truck is a HD series truck, requires MC # AC Delco 18M742 (GM number discontinued) which shows to be 1.25" bore. Booster # GM 19371352 or AC Delco # 178-1027 which I can't cross over to see which one it is, WC # GM 1923345 which I'm curious on since it's showing 1-1/16" bore instead of the larger 1-3/16".

I'm sitting here scratching my head!!

 

[dbrannon79]

Going off these part numbers I would assume that my MC is correct and the WC's are correct but I'm not sure on the booster. I can find the booster by the AC Delco number and the photos I see, it looks correct but again photos can be deceiving especially for this case.

as of now my main focus is to get better braking for the rear. then I'll move to addressing the steering. Going off from Thefermanator's thread on brake upgrades I should benefit by switching to the larger bore WC. I'm also thinking that the rear shoes I installed are cheap aftermarket junk. The reason I believe this is because I do remember when installing them I noticed the linings were glued rather than riveted to the metal backing. I have a dually rear end of the same year model sitting in my back pasture that still has the brakes installed.

just for test purposes and without shooting a blank from the parts cannon, I'm curious of swapping the shoes from it and wc's if there in good shape. I can pickup a couple of larger bore WC's at Advance for around $30 but I'm already tired of buying parts that are ether bad from the getgo or not right. if by swapping these parts from the dually diff make a difference then I can know to place an order for these GM parts.

what is y'all's take on that idea? I know at this point labor is off the charts and out the window, but money is getting tight!

 

[MrMarty51]

If those WCs from the dually work and dont leak, run them until they do leak.

 

[Will L.]

Yes making the change will help.
But to me it’s like money spent for moderate improvement. Put more money into it and go disk rear brake. That makes a big difference. Since I started driving the trucks with all disk, i hate drums for anything. So much that I have. 43 Willy’s and am torn about leaving it drum brakes even though top speed is 45 mph.

 

[dbrannon79]

on a side note, when I was installing the brakes and me being the "dumb" one. I had to search online ( and my mistake for not asking you all) I wanted to make sure I was installing the shoes in the proper orientation thinking that maybe someone put them on backwards. I took to online searching to find out if the shorter shoe was to be installed towards the front or rear of the truck. to my surprise I found a big consensus on that very subject! hoping I did them right, the shorter shoe went to the front.

I need to make sure i didn't screw this up like I have everything else I seem to be doing lately and ask the dumb question... did I do that correctly?

 

[MrMarty51]

Yes You installed them correctly.
The shoe with the shorter material is the primary shoe, primary first, or if You will, forwards.
Primaries on a carb, forwards, at least all the ones I ever worked on was like that.

 

[dbrannon79]

Whoo... just barley made it back in before the rain came!! got the brakes pulled off the dually rear end. WC's look to be in good shape but looks don't count, especially since I'm only 42 and starting to look ugly

the shoes were installed wrong on the old diff, two short ones on the left wheel and two long shoes on the right! there in decent shape for not knowing their age, but I can still read the lettering on the linings "NOVA 952FF" tried to do a search online but nothing came up. the linings are riveted on so that's always good. there's also stamped numbers on each shoe metal backing, long ones have "FMS 656" and the short ones "FMS 452" but these are not something I'm leaving on the truck.

Here are some photos I took. Again I know this isn't something I'd normally do to anyone's vehicle much less my own, I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of money I've put into this thing only to come out with more problems than I started with. once I get these cleaned up and installed to actually feel something's improved, I'm ordering new GM parts. new GM rear shoes and WC's should run me about $150 unless I get from a reputable AC Delco supplier.

Parts are a little wet since it just started raining when I took them!

 

[dbrannon79]

doing a little digging on the shoes I bought from Advance (S452) they are showing them to be new ceramic shoes. I can't remember where I read it, but there was talk about ceramic material vs semi-metalic material in the linings as to which had more grab and stopping power. if the ceramic are best to go with I may be safer to just swap in the wheel cylinders and see what difference is felt, plus it's less work

 

[Stoney]

My opinion...if your not going to go to disc, Best option is to get back to stock...till you can figure out what is causing problems.. otherwise you don't know if something you change now is the reason it don't fix problem when you change something else that's not working right.
Just my opinion

 

[dbrannon79]

right now I'd want to get to stock and find my problem first rather than more modification. as far as getting to stock, when the parts guy at the dealer said it was a heavy duty truck, then gives me part numbers for what I'm seeing on other sites like GMPD and RA plus Napa showing those as light duty. It just blows my mind! the printout he gave me actually states under the vin "light truck" with JB8 braking system. I has asked him if he could give me any details on the parts like bore sizes and such for the MC and WC, his response was he couldn't see that information but I could look online.

taking the info he gave me, all I could find was by looking those parts up on the different sites and seeing what they were and comparing to what I installed. from what I can tell the braking system is all stock now with the exception of the parts not being GM. My gut feeling is telling me that with the weight rating this truck is it all should be heavy duty.

the front grab good but the back is another story. I may be barking up the wrong tree here. I've thought about the portioning valve not working as it should, but I wouldn't have a clue how to test that. maybe even the ABS unit. the MC doesn't bleed down holding the pedal and Ive had someone stomp on the pedal while I opened the rear bleeders and fluid went everywhere! the whole system has been flushed, new front rotors, pads, calipers, bearings and seals. the back has new drums, shoes, springs, and new WC's 1-1/16" bore (what SRW trucks called for at advance auto). when I replaced everything the only thing I found on the old parts was one wheel had a WC from a dually (the 1-3/16" bore).

the reason I did the brake job was because the front pads were wearing thin and the rotors were warped. I did the front first and that took care of most of the pulsation feeling I had but not all of it so I did the rear. that fixed the pulsing when stopping but started this feeling of the rears not grabbing. I've been driving it like this for a little while until the other day someone pulled out in front of me and I had my wife in the truck, I slammed on the pedal, the front took a nose dive and had to veer into the oncoming lane to avoid plowing the little car over. that's when I said this is enough i have to fix this before something happens!

 

[MrMarty51]

I have never been a fan of metallic brakeing shoes. Seems they wear drums much faster. Same with braking pads too.
I’m not sure about ceramic units.
I too have wondered about how much metal is in the stock shoes or pads ?

 

[dbrannon79]

the only thing I can find is the ceramic pads on the front eat rotors and show brake fade. semi-metalic which most older vehicles came with factory have better stopping force. TheFrem and WarWagon mentioned that in other threads. I can only assume it would be the same for rear shoes.

looking up the AC Delco 17452R shoes, I can't find what material their made from but the Raybestos 452PG are organic material. I also found Wagner Z656R shoes but there's no mention of them being semi-metalic. Looking on Napa's site it seems that both the standard and fleet shoes are semi-metalic.

whats weird is the set I pulled from the dually diff has both "656' on one shoe and "425" stamped on the other. those could be mix-matched.

I think I better just try the cylinders for now and see if I get better clamping force to the rear, I'm sure they'll be a difference but weather it's better or worse, I guess I will have to find out.

 

[Husker6.5]

Whoo... just barley made it back in before the rain came!! got the brakes pulled off the dually rear end. WC's look to be in good shape but looks don't count, especially since I'm only 42 and starting to look ugly

the shoes were installed wrong on the old diff, two short ones on the left wheel and two long shoes on the right! there in decent shape for not knowing their age, but I can still read the lettering on the linings "NOVA 952FF" tried to do a search online but nothing came up. the linings are riveted on so that's always good. there's also stamped numbers on each shoe metal backing, long ones have "FMS 656" and the short ones "FMS 452" but these are not something I'm leaving on the truck.

Here are some photos I took. Again I know this isn't something I'd normally do to anyone's vehicle much less my own, I'm just overwhelmed by the amount of money I've put into this thing only to come out with more problems than I started with. once I get these cleaned up and installed to actually feel something's improved, I'm ordering new GM parts. new GM rear shoes and WC's should run me about $150 unless I get from a reputable AC Delco supplier.

Parts are a little wet since it just started raining when I took them!

Maybe the different sized shoes on each side was an attempt by its P.O. to correct for pull to one side?

 

[dbrannon79]

Well I have an update and a couple questions.....

I took the old WC’s I pulled from the dually and opened them up, cleaned them out and good thing I did because there was gunk and rust inside lol. Lightly sanded the cylinder in a circular motion, put a light film of grease on all the parts and put them back together. There was some pitting inside near the center of the cylinders but I don’t think it’s where the seal gets to so I swapped them out on my rears. Bleed them out, readjusted and took for a test drive...

while I had the rear end up in the air I popped it in gear and tried the brakes a couple times and I have to say the wheels will stop and jolt the entire truck pretty hard! Going down the road there is a much better feel. I hit them pretty hard and almost lost my drink lol.

I’m gonna call this good . The WC’s aren’t leaking so that’s a plus. I do have a question on the wear pattern on the shoes. When I slid off the drums I noticed the shoes are only touching in certain areas of the shoe. The brakes were installed back in March and I might have 6k miles on them. I’ve attached a couple of pictures showing how their wearing. Is this normal?

 

[MrMarty51]

Thats nice that the cylinders are working. You mentioned lubing with grease. Not the rubber parts of the cylinders I hope. Grease will rot the rubber brake components real quick.
Looking at the pressure points of the shoes. I would say that those were relined shoes and that the steel portion of the shoe frames was warped before the new linings had been installed.
If it stops good I would run it as is, unless You think the parts store would do an exchange for another set.

 

[MrMarty51]

Oh yeah, always lube the rubber cylinder components with the same type of brake fluid that will be used in the system.