Remanufactured brake shoes can save your customers money and therefore many truck owners find them a viable alternative to new shoes.
In order to be the brake expert for your customer, you need to understand what is involved in the remanufacturing of a heavy-duty brake shoe.
Truck Parts & Service spoke with Doug Wolma, general manager of ArvinMeritor’s Remanufacturing Business. Wolma walked us through the step-by-step process used to remanufacture a brake shoe to ensure it will safely stop a vehicle.
Once a technician takes a brake shoe off a truck, he sends it to a remanufacturing center where it undergoes an initial visual inspection.
“There are criteria we use to evaluate whether the shoe is recoverable or not,” Wolma said. The main reason a shoe is rejected is if the cam or anchor pin end has become mushroomed.
“That means it is deformed and it can’t be brought back into shape by coining it,” he explained. In addition, if the webbing on the bottom of the shoe that holds the pin in place is cracked along the weld, the shoe will be rejected.
Once a shoe has been accepted, it is washed to remove grease and other buildup. Then the shoes are delined, a process by which the friction material is pulled off the brake shoe.
