Contaminated brake shoes - can they be cleaned?

[AR67GTX]

Swapped the shoes and drums side to side on the front after cleaning them all with 99% alcohol. Hoses, wheel cylinders and hard lines all look fine. And . . . now the brakes steer hard to the right. No way to perform a hard stop with them. I would either swap ends or go off the road.

So, about all I can figure is that DOT5 changes the shoe material characteristics in some fashion and simply sanding and cleaning them can’t reverse it. Maybe the friction material swells from the silicon or something?

The secret to better grabbing shoes may be to soak them in DOT5. Just kidding.

New shoes from Craig Stanley will be here later in the week so I’ll probably get them on early next week.

 

[j-c-c-62]

Not sure it was mentioned, but I remember as a kid a trick to "repair" soaked brake lining, was after taken off the car, clean shoes as best as possible, then reapply a flammable solvent (most likely gas?), and light them up. I can see some merit to that in maybe helping "draw" out any contaminates. Never heard any horror stories.
Well with your swap test we know more than we did before.

 

[Fran Blacker]

In the "Old days" maybe you could get away with cleaning shoes. I have no data to back that up, no silicon in those days. This test by AR67GTX for me means no cleaning brake fluid off drums.
I had all of my wheel cylinders brass sleeved. When I opened the package after being sleeved a red sticker said Use only Dot 3 brake fluid! Must be something in other brake fluid that eats brass?

 

[j-c-c-62]

In the "Old days" maybe you could get away with cleaning shoes. I have no data to back that up, no silicon in those days. This test by AR67GTX for me means no cleaning brake fluid off drums.
I had all of my wheel cylinders brass sleeved. When I opened the package after being sleeved a red sticker said Use only Dot 3 brake fluid! Must be something in other brake fluid that eats brass?

I have never heard of brass sleeving nor the merits of doing so, in the big picture.
Seems to me the seals are the compatibility issue with silicone BF's.
BTW, are you implying I am "old"?

 

[AR67GTX]

A lot of master cylinder makers put warnings about DOT5 with them but my personal belief is it’s BS. Others may disagree - that’s fine. I’ve run it in my Corvette for over 30 some years and I’m still on the original master cylinder I rebuilt when I restored the car in the early 90s. And basically I’m tired of touching up paint on firewalls from all the leaking and rusting master cylinders in my Mopars that had DOT3/4 in them.

 

[Fran Blacker]

Did an edit to post #3.