Would a drum brake setup wear shoes slower or faster than a disk setup with pads. Obviously in the rear.
im not sure what would wear faster, but i wouldnt put disk's in the rear of your dodge. my dad went to disk a couple years ago and regrets it. didnt help a bit stopping wise, brake lines would fail and leak. parking brake design was poor, the thing wouldnt even hold the truck, even after we talked to the guy who makes the kits. keep your drums
:doah: I don't have drums, my truck came from the factory with rear disks. They work great. I was just curious which rear brake setup wears faster for the fun of it. opcorn:
oic. :doah: when did they switch do disk? is yours the first year? how is your ebrake work? is it in the driveshaft or rear brakes?
Mine also has rear disks and the e-brake works great. The ones that don't work are the leaver style calipers. They are a joke to put it mildly. But the ones with integral e-brake drums work great. As for wear, it is my impression that the disk are supposed to outlast drums by a large margine, but I have no real experience or knowledge to back that up. However, my old 98 Dodge Ram went through rear drums and shoes like nobodies business, I frankly don't remember how many I went through between 98-02 when I got my Chevy. Apparently they had some problems with drum quality or there may have been a problem with the ABS on my truck. But the Chevy disks/pads still look pretty much new on all 4 corners and that truck works A LOT HARDER than I ever worked that Ram...
'01.5 was when they went disk. early 01's were still drums. THe E brake works great. It's on the calipers.
In our applications, disc brakes are generally prefered to drums. They last longer, are smaller, and are relatively innexpensive to maintain. But, there is a reason that big-rigs kept drums as long as they have.
Big trucks still use drums on the drives and trailer because they are more powerful because of the self-energizing design and they are a fail-safe system when air actuated......when there is an air system failure, the default mode is to engage. Drums are more powerful than discs by design but have an extremely low duty cycle compared to discs because they generate so much heat and cannot disapate it at anywhere near the rate that a disc can so they become extremely prone to brake fade. Either rear brake system can work well on a Dodge but the drums do perform much better when the wheel cylinders are changed to the larger 30 mm bores like those on the rears of GM's....If I had a choice, I would have rear discs - no more brake adjusting! And if you really want to stop a big load on a grade, get an exhaust brake!
I pretty much completely disagree. We own 14 semis and twice as many trailers. The reason why drums are used is because they are cheaper. Disk brake systems are around but the cost is way too high. After factoring in the huge storage and availability of semi drum brake parts it's still not worth the cost and unavailability for a new disk setup. It's kind of the like the term " if it isn't broke don't fix it." The drums work fine. Also, you have to understand the market place of large trucks. It is completely different than the automotive market place because it is much more competitive. A pair of rear drums for my 14BFF under my K5 is something like $150+ PER drum. I just bought a pair of composite drums for a Great Dane 48' spread for just a hair over $100, thats a pair, not single. THe "fail safe" mode that you are refering to are called maxi's. They have nothing to do with the drum design itself. The maxi system is in the air pot itself, not the drum. Regardless, I'm sure the experimental air disk setups out there are set up the same way with a maxi type pod. Drums are not more efficient than disks, it's the other way around.
Uh huh, ok.....who said ANYTHING about drums being more "EFFICIENT" than discs? Since I stated the duty cycle on discs is considerably higher than drums, I was implying the opposite, also. For a one-time panic stop, the self energizing design of the drum brake will generate more stopping power but the following applications of the brakes will be at a drastically reduced power level because of the heat....discs will continue to provide peak stopping power many more times before they fade. So, even though discs are somewhat less powerful, they are a much safer and more consistent type of braking system.
Kinda off topic but how the hell would disc brakes work in an air brake system? If I understand the drum style air brakes have a lever that turns a cam forcing the pads out to the drum. This lever is held in the brake position by default with a spring in the air bag thing. When air pressure is applied it overcomes the spring releasing the brakes. How would this work with discs?
I don't know but it's out there. I'm sure making an air actuated disk brake is not all that complicated.
