Drum brakes don't automatically make a bad braking vehicle.

The best brakes I have ever owned were on a 85 2500 Chevy, rear drums. With a tailer in tow that truck would come to a violent stop very quickly. It was a heavier truck with a big block and i'm thinking it stoped better than my 1500 with four wheel disks.

 

Yes................what you have to consider as well, is that todays modern materials used in the construction of the brake shoes in the drums, is also a whole lot better.
The brake fade of drums back in the "bad old good old days", has been improved tremendously by the better shoe friction materials. Just like the friction materials on pads has.
I remember (unfortunately ha ha) that when discs where being introduced en-mass on cars and such, they too, had a fair degree of brake fade if you used them on long downhills under load etc.
So, the upshot is that drums will have improved due to the better materials employed.
I don't have any data to prove this, but I'm sure there will be some somewhere on the net?
Does anyone know if theres a mechanical advantage from the outset that pads/discs have over shoes/drums.
It appears to me that there is substantially more friction contact area on shoes than pads?
The performance of shoes must be impacted by being enclosed, accentuating the effects of heat build up and the lack of heat dissipation etc, that discs don't have to bother with.
But as I say, this has been reduced by the increase in high temp materials used in shoe construction.
Just my 2p.
Al.

 

I guess the main question I have is, why? I agree that braking has come a long way since the horse and buggy, but I still don't see the advantage of going from a previous rear disc set up on an old model and reverting to a drum brake on a completely "new" truck. Braking material has been improved, but the general principle is still the same. Along with heat soak being a problem with drum brakes. With 60%-80%+ of the stopping force coming from the front brakes, rear drums are adequate for the job. When was the last time you saw drum brakes on a front of a vehicle? How about a front drum upgrade kit? But why didn't GM use discs out back? Did it cost that much more for GM to employ discs out back? I hope that this doesn't send a meassage to DC that cutting corners is ok.

Here is an interesting article about drums vs disc

 

Yep I agree Doc.............Why..............well I think we all konw that....................COSTS.
But I was just thinking, theres a lot more to a drum installation compared to discs.
There's the slave cylinders, the extra metal in the castings, the shoe retaining springs and all that fidddly stuff then all the extra stuff with the hub and back plate assyemblies.
You know.............it makes one wonder if it is cheaper to go with drums?
Al.