With disc brakes coming into use in the late 1960's, we often forget how bad drum brakes are in water. I see people drive through water up to their bumpers in any heavy ran. People did NOT do that in the early 60's and back. If you got all 4 drums wet, you had NO brakes. You might have just gotten a drum wet and the other is weak.

 

I replaced the brake shoes and hardware on both rear wheels a month or so ago, barely 100 miles on them. I can pull the drums, if need be and make sure nothing is damaged, from the way the brakes worked today I think they are ok

 

If he smelled hot brakes on the left front I don't see how it would be his rear drums.

My brake hoses would collapse and then be ok for awhile and then it would happen again. New lines and it never happened again.

 

Unless they were still wet and you parked the van for a while, you won't see anything. It's a quirk of drum brakes. It's also possible you hit the brakes while you were on a cracked sealer in the road. After this long cold blast we had recently, they are popping out of the pavement all over town.

 

I closely inspected the hoses, saw no dry rotting or cracks in the rubber, they look to have been replaced by previous owner.

 

The lines break down internally, so, no visible evidence of a problem on inspection. The line essentially becomes a one-way valve. You can apply, but, they don't release. Given your testing, I don't think that is the problem. More than likely just 'wet brake syndrome'.

 

FWIW For some reason, I have terrible luck with the pad clips. They hang up sometimes on my van and cause a hard pull or it will sound like something is clunking in the front end. I dont think any of the pads I have used are exactly the right size...that is all I can figure

 

It's nothing to do with the rear brakes, they don't work all that hard and only provide about 15-20% of the braking effort. The front brakes do all the work.

I suspect something got into the right front caliper, a stone or similar, and stopped that applying, then fell out, maybe when you reversed.

 

I took it out today, to test on my newspaper motor routes, seemed fine for the first 45 min of stop and go driving. But right after that it started the pulling hard left and smelled hot brakes again. I managed to get it back home and used my other vehicle to finish. I have 2 brand new front hoses ordered, will be here Sat morning. Now, will I have to do a 4 wheel brake system bleed, or just the fronts?

 

It could be a dragging caliper but it sounds more like a failing hose. You could bleed just the front but I would do all four.Just so you know all the fluid is fresh. Dot 3 and 4 brake fluid is hygrosopic. This is the fluid sucking moisture out of the air. That's what causes calipers and wheel cylinders to bind up over time.