front brake pad size

[Canavair]

good morning. Have a 65 corvair 4 door sport sedan. replacing the front brake pads - supplier states he has 9.5" and 11" size. any advice on which one?

[66vairguy]

Hmmmm - 9.5" is the drum diameter so I'll assume you still have the stock drum brakes that use "brake shoes". Disc pads are for disk brakes which the Corvair did not have, but there are kits to add Disc brakes to the Corvair.

If you do have drum brakes several folks have had better luck with one brand vs. another. Overall today's "brake shoes" tend to be made from a harder material vs. the original brake shoes which results in very high pedal pressure to stop the car. This material is called the "lining". I got lucky and found a local truck brake shop were the owner does work for the old car folks. He uses a "soft" lining to "re-line" the brake shoes and arcs the shoes to the drums. They worked/stopped a lot better compared to the brake shoes from the autoparts places.

You can go here http://corvaircenter.com/phorum/list.php?1 and ask or do a search. Topic of poor stopping has come up a LOT over the years.

[bbodie52]

http://autoxer.skiblack.com/brakes.html

Shoe sizes
Here are standard shoe numbers for Corvairs, courtesy Dave Robertson:

Early Vairs [1960-1964] use # 189 shoes front and rear (9" x 1.75"). 60 and 61 originally had a shoe with reinforcements on the webbing where the shoes rubbed on the anchor pin, but the 189 works fine.

Lates [1965-1969] use 242d or 245 front (9.5" x 2") and 246 rear (9.5 x 2.5").

If you want a supplier who specializes in Corvairs (since 1973) and doesn't have to guess for the correct parts...

http://www.corvair.com/user-cgi/catalog ... w_page=141

[66vairguy]

Note that the 65-69 Corvair brake shoes are the same size as used on the Chevrolet 65 Chevelle, EXCEPT the larger front Chevelle shoes go on the back of the Corvair and vice versa. So the shoes are easy to find. HOWEVER the rear shoes need slots for the parking brake mechanism. Now almost ALL the aftermarket shoes have the parking brake slots on the front and rear shoes so they work on either a Corvair or Chevelle.