The Brake Drum Condundrum

[98taco3]

May be able to find a small scale foundry that can cast them as the originals are made. There are A LOT of statue foundries around here, let me poke around a bit. Was just thinking about this myself as Ive got an egg shaped drum or two on my truck that need addressed.

[ZGjethro]

I had to go to youtube to see the process of spray welding. The videos I saw were of worn down shafts being built up and then lathe turned back to original specs. It didn't look like inexpensive work by any means. I could easily see $200-300 per wheel, but I could be out of touch of the cost of good machine work

[outsider]

M116A1 trailers are also the same. Tried to sell a 116 a couple of years ago for $450 with no takers. I thought about it a little and realized all the wheel components were the same and decided to keep the trailer for parts to fix the M37.

Also you may want to check with East Jordan Iron Works in East Jordan, Mi. As they do a lot of brake drums for other applications.

Steve

[MSeriesRebuild]

One of my guys that works here in the shop has a son that does exactly this for a proto-typing Co. in Charlotte. He has produced Power Wagon headlight buckets, and some other impossible to find parts for some WWII equipment we have in process. These processes and cheap DO NOT fit in the same sentence, and I'm not convinced we will see that in the foreseeable future. Based on my experience; I expect I could sell you all the custom components to convert to 4-wheel disc cheaper than you could get 1 drum printed up at this time. The process is great when you have clients that can afford to have otherwise impossible to find components printed. Here again, based on my experience; if you would not want to pay $250 for a good drum if it existed, no need to even think about a printed drum. I'm interested to see what kind of prices come in from the investigation mentioned here.

On another note; someone mentioned good drums from a 101 trailer. Let me say I have NEVER seen a good trailer drum for use on a truck. They are typically junk that are turned way past maximum specs. Check out other threads discussing this in the archives on this forum before spending $$ for them, or you may hate yourself in the morning.

[w30bob]

Hi Guys,

I contacted S&S Trucking, i.e., Newstar, to see if they planned to make replacement M37 brake drums. Short answer was no, because they haven't found a good vendor to work with for drums. So that's not looking very promising. And it looks like it's going to have to be a big company to make the drums, as opposed to us doing it, due to the legal liability associated with making brake parts. If one of us was to make drums and someone got hurt or worse, and they traced it to a defective drum......they'd sue our butts off. So what I thought would be a rather simple thing to do is (as usual) rather complicated. But I'll keep digging!

regards,
bob

[MSeriesRebuild]

My employee's son who works in the 3D printing industry was here at the shop the other day; so I had the perfect opportunity to have this discussion about the brake drum. Straight forward honesty here; he thought it was a joke. He explained the process in simple terms; or at least made an attempt to keep it simple; in his words there is no process out there at this time that is complex enough to print a part such as a brake drum that would be reliable and safe to use. His opinion is that it would very likely crack. Don't get upset with me because of this response; all I know about it is what I'm told by this person whom I know very well that works in the industry every day; i.e. don't shoot the messenger. When I mentioned the part about someone thinking it might could happen for a lesser cost than the $250 asking price someone mentioned here for a so called good drum; well then the conversation turned to laughter. So, based on this info., I doubt if we will be seeing any repro drums showing up anytime soon 3D printed or otherwise. The cost would be off the charts for someone to get tooled up to make it happen by traditional methods; and the market is a long ways from being able to support the cost. Bottom line is simple; nobody is eager to invest money into an obviously losing venture.

[F18hornetm]

I refrained from commenting on this issue because I am sure in the future this stuff will be possible and didn't want to damper anyone's ideas. .
Having said that, I happen to have a 3d printer in my shop at home, [its my sons] And from his research and all the parts he has made, a brake drum would be out of the question. At least for any reasonable cost. Again, not to say its impossible, just no where near practical.
Its amazing the parts he has "printed". All his parts are plastics or nylons, but still way cool technology. At this point it seems either use good drums or switch out to disc..
Still, if we don't think, or dream about these things. Technology will not move forward. So heres to the guys with wild ideas!!

[jim lee]

Maybe not big enough to do brake drums, (yet) but I've seen where people are using 3D printers for printing shapes for lost wax type molds. Print the shape, encase it and burn the plastic out. Then pour in your metal.

-jim lee

[MSeriesRebuild]

Maybe not big enough to do brake drums, (yet) but I've seen where people are using 3D printers for printing shapes for lost wax type molds. Print the shape, encase it and burn the plastic out. Then pour in your metal.

-jim lee

I too have seen some amazing things done with current technology of this type. What we are discussing will be a reality at some point I have no doubt. How far out that is remains to be seen; and to see it in reality at what the average person would say is a reasonable price; well that is really out there at this time.

I wonder more about the common sense aspect of this. It is a fact that interest in these trucks is less and less with the younger generation; so as time goes on with what appears to be less interest overall; where does that take seeing this as a reasonably priced, readily available product that would be profitable for someone to make? We'll see what the future holds.

[jim lee]

Well.. And to be honest, I actually have 3, 3D printers. We started using them for making alignment, drilling and routing jigs. Now we use 'em for printing quadcopters.

For example our miniQuad.



The complete airframe is 3D printed. Crash it? Just print up new frame pieces and off you go.

-jim lee

[F18hornetm]

Jim, That is very neat. If you can draw it up, you can print it.

[jim lee]

What I'd rally like to "print" is a blinkin' cup holder for my M37. Not having ANY cup holder is such a pain! Go through a drive through and.. Wait, how do I hold the drink and drive too? What's stopping me is I haven't yet come up with a slick design. Currently I'm thinking, hang one on the windshield adjustment knobs. Anyone out there have an idea for cup holders on these machines?

-jim lee

[w30bob]

Hi Jim,

What you want is something like this;

http://www.ebay.com/itm/02-01-99-00-saa ... a3&vxp=mtr

Sits under the dash a little to the right under the gauges to clear the shifter when it's open. You'd have to modify the metal "cage" to clear the back side of the gauges, but the holder itself is flat and barely noticeable when closed. Heck, it even looks green in the pic!

later,
bob