Drum shoes recommendation

[RegularGuy]

Wrapping up the process of cherry picking brake parts for my 2007 ranger, I'm now just missing what I should use on the rear.
Thus far I've ordered slotted rotors and EBC Yellow pads for the front, and the 10" Aerostar drums for the rear.

As of this point I'm just trying to find something similarly aggressive to the EBC for the rear. Does anyone know of any shoes that are extra 'grabby'? I wouldn't expect a performance shoe to exist but heres hoping!

 

[Uncle Gump]

I would be careful with "extra grabby" shoes on the rear. These little truck are already prone to locking up the rear wheels without any help.

 

[RegularGuy]

My interest in such a shoe is for the sake of balancing purposes, in an attempt to keep the front from losing traction a significant time before the rear.

I haven't started putting the parts on the truck but it's an issue I've heard about on other vehicles.

Referring to what you had said, would the ranger benefit from a change in brake bias moving more towards the front? Its been my experience that unless there's extremely low traction during (ice, not even gravel) the rear brakes could be performing better. I would suppose it is possible however that mine were just due for replacement, so perhaps my experience is different than that of others

 

[Uncle Gump]

I don't feel it's a bias issue... more like water intrusion... shoe contamination... parking brake cable issues and improper adjustment of the shoes. The other issue is there isn't any weight on the rear... while braking weight is transferred to the front wheels and the conditions I stated are amplified.

However your results may vary... I just don't think an aggressive brake shoe on the rear is the answer. I'm curious to see what you find out...

 

[4.0blue98]

I agree with @Uncle Gump 100%.

That said, I struggled for years to find a decent shoe for my 98. Always had vibrations or difficulties getting the adjustments right for more than a few months. I tried four different sets over about 5 years and finally settled on these: Centric HDs

They are just an HD shoe, and nothing special but I like them and would highly recommend them. They've been great for almost three years now and haven't had to do a thing to adjust them since install.

 

[RegularGuy]

The Centric HD shoes has struck me as being the best there is for the 10" drum, unless someone has better experiences with another product, that's the one I'll likely go with

CARiD has a universal 11" drum assembly listed but I feel its unnecessary for my application and for the price, most people would be better off doing the disk conversion

 

[gw33gp]

I agree, if you install better performing front brakes, you also need better performing rear brakes. When I installed better brake pads on the front, I had a little better braking but the front wheels were dusting up like crazy because the fronts were doing most of the work. I found some brake shoes made by Raybestos called Super Stop and installed them. My braking improved more and the dusting of the front wheels was almost eliminated. Braking balance IS important. I have around 200K miles on those Super Stop shoes and they are still working great and have more miles left on them.

Unfortunately, I think Raybestos stopped making the Super Stop shoes. I am sure there are other shoes available with high performance friction material.

 

[8thTon]

Drum shoes are a lot more variable due to changes in adjustment. My 10" drums are just running AZ shoes, but I usually have no issues with them (other than the crappy ABS). However one time I had lots of wear and dusting on the fronts plus poor braking - I had the truck inspected and they did not properly readjust the rears. Then I realized I had not been pushing the parking brake down far enough to really activate the adjusters. Once I readjusted them and began using the parking brake properly that all went away.

Anyway, I'd be far more concerned that everything was installed correctly back there and properly adjusted than I would be about what compound the shoes were. The compound has mostly to do with fade and heat issues, and I seriously doubt you're overheating the drums unless you're running really loaded a lot. You probably want a street compound that works well when cold on the drums, because they will most always be cold.

 

[gw33gp]

My experience with brakes tells me a higher friction compound makes a big difference. I tow my race car all over the country and the original brakes were marginal at best for that. That was even with the use of trailer brakes. Installing higher friction compound front and rear made braking something not to be concerned about. Yes, it improved fade resistance, but also improved braking force considerably.

I don't have a problem with cold braking either. I do know what poor cold braking is though. My race car is a prime example of that. Fortunately, we have a warm up lap to get them heated up before they need to work optimally.

 

[Dirtman]

I like flip flops...

 

[RegularGuy]

I do believe I found the cause of my issue today, some knucklehead didn't even attempt to remove the rust from the front rotors, let alone turn (or more appropriately in this case replace) them. The inner pads, passenger and driver's side have a rather large bevel cut into them from riding on an 1/8" deep lip of rust.

As I am waiting on replacement rotors to arrive, I decided to try and at least try and give myself a chance of stopping.... So I beat the heck out of those rotors until the rusty bits were at least smooth

Heres some before:


And after shots:


I also did a test fit of my new EBC pads