I recently purchased the 11" backing plates from a '77 Malibu station wagon to replace the 9" rear drum brakes on my '68 Malibu. I had also purchased about two years ago a replacement hardware kit for the 9" but never used it. Does anyone know if this hardware kit will work with the 11" backing plates? I am hoping that all I would need to further purchase then is the 11" brake shoes, wheel cylinders and drums.

Thanks,
Bruce

I doubt the springs and some hardware from an 9" brake setup will work on 11" dia brakes.

But...you could ask your friendly, local parts guy to look up the hardware kit part numbers on a rear '68 and for a rear '78 to see if the same.

Any chance of reusing the wheel cylinders if they are good?

I'm about 95% sure that the 11" drum setups use all different hardware with the exception of the brake shoe hold-down springs and cups. You can poke around over at www.napaonline.com and compare part numbers if you want though. As I recall, napa has "complete" hardware kits that are pretty cheap anyway.

The wheel cylinders are definitely different between the 11" and 9.5" drums.

This thread over on nastyZ has a nice breakdown with part numbers, etc.:
http://www.nastyz28.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54675

Here's a post I made a while back with the part numbers and prices I had collected at the time:
http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2157048&highlight=drums#post2157048
I ended up picking up a second-hand MP brakes 11" kit, so I can't confirm that all of these numbers are right, but they "should" be...