Re: [Chrysler300] brake drum balance weights?

Having balanced a gazillion tires and wheels over my too long career, I would suggest just mounting the drum on a tire balancer and see if it's balanced.

When having a balance problem on some of the Hi-Po cars I dealt with, if the tire and rim were in balance, I would try the drum and found some that were off.

Also, we had a service rep from the balancer mfg. come and he showed how just the cellophane from a cigarette pack between the face and the drum or wheel would throw it out of balance.

We saw that the face had to be clean...

Old memories, what we have left.

On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Ray Melton <rfmelton@xxxxxxx> wrote:

Hello All –

Regarding the recent thread on drums, while renewing the brakes on my late father’s 1957 300C, I noticed that there was an extra piece of metal welded onto the outer face of each drum near the outer periphery – the piece was in the shape of an arc about 2-1/2” long X 1” wide X ~ 3/16” thick. I would normally guess that this was some sort of balancing weight (probably around two ounces, on only a ~ 5-inch moment arm), but I am somewhat concerned about that because ALL the weights were the same size on each drum, and I could find no apparent consistency in location around the circumference. Furthermore, I have a hard time believing that there could be exactly the same imbalance amount and location for each of the four drums, especially considering that they are essentially perfectly circular, with not much possibility for imbalance.

Is there a better explanation? Any thoughts on this?

Ray Melton

--
Ray Jones. Y'all come on down an see us. Ya hear?