Due to budget reasons, Im just rebuilding my front suspension but keeping drum brakes for a while. What can I do to improve the 4 wheel manual drum brakes on my Chevelle? I read in an issue of carcraft there is a drum brake upgrade kit made by some companies, and when they put it on a Satellite/Roadrunner it really improved the stopping power. My car doesnt stop bad as is, it just doesnt stop straight...

One of the best brake upgrades you can make on your car is a good set of quality tires.

The drum brake shoes you are talking about is the Praise Dyno Brakes.

I think Tony N. had those on his old Buick convert. :confused: as well as others on this board. Although I've never experienced their product to give a review of them so you might want to ask one of them.

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Joe

If your front drums are not adjusted correctly, they will cause the front to pull when braking. My father has a problem with this on his 1959 Apache pick-up which causes us to constantly have to keep up with manually adjusting the front brakes. You will probably have to pull the wheel and drum to make sure your self adjusters are working and that they aren't all gummed up or frozen.

I have a friend with Praise Dyno shoes on his GTO. They are very nice, but if I remember correctly they were pretty $$$. The last time I had my Chevelle running, I just had new shoes and everything adjusted properly and the car didn't stop that bad. Not prefect, but not bad.

There is also a banging noise coming from the front left (i think) when I come to a stop sometimes, but not all the time. It also pulls hard to the right under panic braking. By hard, i mean it spins out. Also both front brakes dont "drag" when you spin the wheels, they spin freely and then grab hard randomly when you spin it.

check your control arms, either a bushing is wasted or the cross shaft is loose.