Definitely brake fluid Rob. It looks a lot worse than it turned out be be.

Back drums are away for skimming. Main reason for that is that EAC Parts confirm the interweb stories. China seems to be then only source of aftermarket drums, and they've chosen to stop selling them - their return rate due to brake judder got too silly. If one of mine is past skimming I'll get a Chinese one and try it. If it's oval then I'll use it for as long as I can stand it to give it some heat and work, then get it skimmed.

According to various people in the know, drums used to be cast and then thrown onto piles for as long as a couple of years before being machined. Helps the cast in strain to relieve itself. No time for that malarkey in today's world.
 
Rear drums - one needed 15 thou over the max, the other looks like if we do the same there will be one 40 thou wide groove in it. At 10.06" it's still a bit of a mess, so I said go a bit further. There's a ton of metal on them so I'm not bothered from that point of view, my thinking is that I'll just need to change shoes a bit more frequently to make sure that I don't over extend the pistons or run out of linings.

Anyone disagree?
 
Rear drums - one needed 15 thou over the max, the other looks like if we do the same there will be one 40 thou wide groove in it. At 10.06" it's still a bit of a mess, so I said go a bit further. There's a ton of metal on them so I'm not bothered from that point of view, my thinking is that I'll just need to change shoes a bit more frequently to make sure that I don't over extend the pistons or run out of linings.

Anyone disagree?
as long as its thick enough your only worry is running out of adjustment/piston travel
 
Thanks James, just don't fancy spending Yuans on something that maty be rubbish!
 
You can fit a small piece of tubing over the leading shoe adjuster post to get more from the linings.
 
You can fit a small piece of tubing over the leading shoe adjuster post to get more from the linings.
I didn't realise that the adjuster snail was so precisely made to run out as the linings do! A handy tip.

I just did a little AutoCAD 'animation' to see how an ovesized drum affects shoe wear. It's quite surprising how little it needs to be before the middle of the shoe takes all the wear.
 
All done. Well, brakes done anyway. Coupled with advancing the ignition by some miles over the Green Book numbers the car is transformed. Servo was definitely dead.

Wipers stopped on the trip into town though. Rotary light switch (military) still needs re-building. And so it goes..
 
There's a few people fitted new drums, found them so warped they've put the old ones back on. May be worth getting some old drums put by.
Appearently you can weather them faster if you pee on them: Not tried this myself...
 

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