Source for rear drum brake cylinders. Recommendations?

I'm replacing the cylinders on the 11x2 1/2" rear drums. Would they be the same as those used on the smaller drums? And does anybody know where I can get quality parts instead of cheap Chinese replacements..

Thanks!!

I just put 11" on mine, had 10" The cylinders "look" bigger on the 11" but that's just a visual observation.

Me personally I'd probably just order from DR Diff but I have no idea where he gets them from...

I just rebuilt the brakes on the 9.25 in my wife's duster. Raybestos from RockAuto was still made in USA... I ordered BrakeBest wheel cylinder rebuild kits from O'reilly and one was an old stock Made in USA, one was new made in China; BrakeBest is made by Carlson and after doing some digging on Carlson's website it looks like they've offshored all of their manufacturing. I used the USA made wheel cylinder rebuild kit to build out a spare have on hand.

To my knowledge, no brake drums or rotors are USA made, most all of them come from communist China and the final machining is done here with some excepts such as Brembo replacements for Toyota's coming from Brazil.

A friend of mine who's a local car guy is the manager of my nearest O'reilly's, he's just as frustrated and listening to the problems he deals with from the parts store side, it's just as frustrating for them as they're struggling to just get most parts whereas hobbyist like us are struggling to get quality parts.

Thanks. I'll check out Dr Diff's site.



I appreciate your input. I understand the parts shortage. My girlfriend's son was manager of a local O'Reilly's... He said it was hell trying to find parts. I'm really happy for him that he recently landed a sheet metal workers apprenticeship gig in a nearby town, but I sure miss those store manager prices. LOL

Luckily the drums are in very nice condition, and even the brake shoes are still like new. But I'm not trusting the cylinders since the rubber boots have shrunk and are in poor shape.
I just power washed the drums and the backing plates, and repainted them.

Is the number on the cylinder what I need to use for cross-referencing or ordering?

If you feel handy, rebuilding wheel cylinders is perhaps the easiest rebuild-able part on a brake system. When you order wheel cylinders (or rebuild kits) I'd suggest going thru RockAuto's website and drill down by the car you have and you should see the different parts based on brake shoe sizes. If you try the big box store route, I'd start at Napa personally or an old school independent shop if you have one.

There is no reason to get new cylinders just for the dust boots. As far the rubber parts are available I simply would replace those. Rebuilt kits with rubber parts are available. Well, they are/were available in Venezuela at least, so I guess why not in USA.

Replaced the cyls shoes and hardware on my 65 with 11 inch rears from 69 RT.Got it all from rock auto.Cyls were bendix if I remember That was last year.Was going to rebuild my old ones but just went new.No problems.Rocky

BUT that is providing there is no pitting in the cylinders. Even light pitting can take quite awhile to hone out. Typically the pitting is what causes the leaks not the seals themselves. However, once the seal has been used in a pitted cylinder its edge will likely be damaged so it should be replaced

I've had no problems getting old brake parts from NAPA.

Joe

Since I will never sell my car as long as I live, I had the factory original master and wheel cylinders all bored and sleeved with brass to the original ID. Cost was $300 10 years ago.

Thanks for the replies.
I'll take the cylinders apart for inspection. Maybe boots and cleaning are all that is needed.

Background on the brakes/car....The brakes worked fine back in fall of 2012 before the car was stripped clean for body and interior work (finished in fall of 2016)...fast forward to spring of this year, the car is painted and back together. Early in the car overhaul project I removed the brakes for cleaning, and replaced the rusty factory brake lines. For most of that 9 years of inactivity the brakes sat in the back of the garage and i failed to plug the cylinder to prevent contamination. I'm betting that humidity and 'sweating' has caused rust inside the cylinder. Guess I'll know soon

Damn....

Looks like rebuilding the cylinders won't be happening. One of the alum. pistons is shot because of corrosion.
Screw messing with a rebuild kit... I'll be looking for some new ones.

yep...I've seen that before.

I don't know if what I'm doing is wrong, but starting a decade back, whenever I buy a wheel cylinder, I disassemble it, clean and paint the body with engine paint. Then when I re-assemble them before installing them, I grease the aluminum piston with synthetic/rubber safe grease (I use Super-Lube), and I also pack it between the piston and outer rubber seal. I do this to keep moisture out, with my thinking that moisture is what starts and provides the fuel for corrosion.

Since doing all this extra work, I've yet to replace one of those wheel cylinders prepped that way.

edit - And I also use DOT5 in all my old cars that don't have ABS. I realize that there is a current thread debating it, but I've found that to do it w/o problems later on, the brake system has to have all new seals (beaning new or freshly rebuild calipers & wheel cylinders) and the lines be flushed with solvent before essentially doing a first/fresh fill and bleed with DOT5.

Thanks for the input...just ordered cylinders from Dr. Diff.

I'd try to clean those anyway... maybe the results could be surprising! LOL

nacho, What are you smoking down there

Looked up 69 RR rear wheel cylinders on NAPA's site, $17.98,
how does that compare with Dr. Diff?

Not trying to undo the good DR's value to our sport, just wondering.

Joe

PS. looked up the Dr's price....better than NAPAs, my apologies Doc

Definitelly not what that cylinders got LOL.

NO, BUT REALLY, sometimes it looks worst that really is.

And I'm not anymore "down there", but at the other side of the ocean... I'm in Spain.

$30 (+ $7.85 shipping) seems reasonable, i didn't even bother price checking on other sites. Hell, I wouldn't doubt if a rebuild kit mentioned by a few costs more (and i won't bother looking around to find out).



It's grease caked with some mystery crap...and that alum. cylinder has corroded to the point of 'not usable', but you can have the pair for $29.99, plus shipping

I've always bought new/rebuilt ones because for the price difference to getting the rebuild kit, fighting with seized bleeders, cleaning them up so they look decent it's not worth the trouble of rebuilding them. That being said I have been known to keep the old ones incase they ever become hard to get or need any parts from them.

my motto is : "never throw anything away that you can stash on the shelf, or hide in a corner !"
and i wonder why i fall over "stuff" daily........