The brakes on the Jeepster are a little scary.  They work, but the car pulls to one side and shudders when I jump on the brakes hard.

When I rebuilt the brakes last May I cheaped out and did not turn the drums.  The drums looked OK so I gambled on them.  Now I am almost certain that was a mistake.   The only way to find out is to tear in and take a look.

I removed the locking hubs and outer wheel bearings.   Much to my surprise I found the chunk of metal in the picture above in the grease around the outer wheel bearing.   I have NO idea what it is.

Just to be safe I cleaned and repacked the wheel bearing and inspected everything carefully.  It all looks pretty decent so I took the drums in to get turned.  According to the machinist the passenger side drub was .020″ out of round.  He speculates that it got dropped at some point.  Could be.

The good news is the drums are not badly worn and turned down nicely.  I should have done this before.

Just for the heck of it I painted the drums.

I put everything back together and adjusted the brakes.  I put new hub gaskets on the joints of the locking hubs to try and keep the grease inside the hub where it belongs.   It was raining for a while but I took advantage of  a lull to try out the brakes.  They are much better.  The car stops smooth and straight.