Carrier brake pads

42mk1carrier · #1 09-02-05, 15:58

Guys, just some info on the brakes of my carrier

I had my drums machined and my brake shoes relined and the thickness for the pads is .4375 after radius.
This allows the drum to put back on with plenty of pad.
For the amount of driving I do with the carrier this should last 20 years

The brake shop for the guys in the U.S. is
Friction Materials Inc.
Essex MD.

BIG Steve Kantner
(15th Recce)

Andrew Morrison · #2 09-02-05, 17:42

What kind of lining material did you opt for?

When re-lined my carrier found some original carrier lining material. Thought was doing the right thing but ended up re-doing the linings with softer truck material as turning was a lot more difficult. This was due to the lining being harder than the lining material normally used on the Blitz truck where the axle came from. Once re-lined problem solved.

42mk1carrier · #3 09-02-05, 18:06

Andrew, The pad that was on the shoes had a brass weave in it
But the shop told me this was hard to raduis So for the relining I too went with softer truck lining. As i don't put many miles on the carrier just WWII reenacments if I put 50 miles a year on the carrier it's a good year

Next week I will bring the carrier home from Jim Burrill's house.
He was helping me do some work on it as I know very little about the maintance of those little beasts. But now the steering and the brakes are done it's time to bring it home.
Our next WWII reenactment is in March so I will be ready for that

Big Steve K

rob love · #4 09-02-05, 18:28

If you want to be able to do those really impressive 180 degree turns from a standstill, the brakes just gotta be right.
It can't be stressed enough to the guys who are new to restoring carriers how important it is to have the drums turned clean. Most of the drums will get severely scored over time, and this reduces the effective surface area of the shoe/drum contact. Having the new (or old) shoes ground to match the drums is pretty important as well, although they will set in after a while.
Do it right the first time; the job only gets bigger once you have the whole vehicle all together. I had 2 drums turned just last fall and it only ran $35. The hard part is finding a machine/brake shop that can handle the weight of the drum/hub/sprocket assembly. The guy who did mine says they even turn truck drums with the dual tires still mounted on them, so mine weren't so bad.

After you turn the drums, make sure the hub seals are in good shape. Nothing like ruining all your work for a couple of seals. Warning: The last set I went to buy they wanted $65 a seal.

42mk1carrier · #5 09-02-05, 18:44

Rob, I had the drums machined they were two diffrent sizes and one was oblong now both are the same size and round.
My carrier came from Jim Rice to Jim Burrill to me, Did you have my carrier at some point CT113354??? Jim got the side armor from some landfill at some school in Canada so I am told.
I guess my carrier is made from several doner carriers as the left drum was in far better shape than the right one the right one was oval like it had hit something. and the grease seal was bad,
I got a replacement.

BIG Steve K

Andrew Morrison · #6 09-02-05, 19:03

As you say getting these things right first time is important. We do not normally do enough miles per year in a carrier to bed them in like you would in a car. If a carrier does not steer right (and that depends so much on the brakes) it can be a real pain to drive and that takes all the fun out of it.

rob love · #7 09-02-05, 19:36

42mk1carrier:
The carrier you have origionally came from Gordon Falk. The side armour (my timelines are correct) were from some carriers which had been buried as a breakwater at a University study site near Portage la Prairie. We took the armour off the first two, and recovered 3 complete hulls out of the same site over the next couple of years. Hard to say why your drums would have been so different. Gord was recovering a lot of various hulls from everywhere back at the time (and still is; he's a bloodhound when it comes to these thoings). As I recall that carrier was trading material with Jim, who later got my cariier (CT163013) in another deal with me. I beleive that one is in your neck of the woods now as well.
The front armor came from some carriers we raided North of Thunder Bay Ontario. There were 5 hiding in the bush up there, although none had complete armour. Just as well; it would have been a bugger to float the hulls out of there, across about 4 miles of lake, up another mile of river/gentle rapids, and onto the beach another mile up.

Andrew: I found that by using a angle grinder (and a respirator, and doing it outside) I could mate up the shoes with the freshly turned drums fairly close. It didn't take too long after that to get the shoes to set in. If the shoes are grossly out of radius, I agree; you will be putting a lot of poor performance miles on before you get them to work right, along with a bit of glazing on the portions of the shoes that were trying to do all the work in the first place.

42mk1carrier · #8 10-02-05, 04:29

Rob, Thanks for the info on my carrier

CT163013 is at the same place as mine (at Jim Burrill's)
It is owned by Barry Detwiler and is still rolling fighting the "HUNS"

BIG STEVE