I brake for brakes

What a weekend. Lori is sick and I gave up Bulletproof to work on my Desoto and XS650. Well let's start with the meat of this update, the Desoto brakes. i spent all weekend cleaning, painting again.

Upgrades:
1. New wheel cylinders. Unfortunately they're Chinese. Is this all you can get anymore? Sad.
2. New u-bolts. I upgraded from 1/2" to 5/8". I got these from a 4X4 place. They are beefy. Unfortunately this meant I had to drill out the leaf spring bracket to fit the bigger bolt. And not having a 5/8" drill bit meant 8 holes took 2 hours with various grinding bits and a Dremel.
3. New brake hoses
4. 3" lowering block. Cheap Chinese aluminum. I hope it doesn't crack. Stupid Autozone crap. The u-bolts that came with this kit were the shittiest shit that ever shat. Which is why I bought the above u-bolts.


Issues:
1. Stripped a left hand thread on the drum using the puller. Now I gotta find someone to fix it.
3. The fender skirts seem to have been designed not for use with the trim. If you look, it contacts it and hangs down further than it should. I don't have a solution for this.

I still need to bleed the brakes and replace the front wheel cylinders. NEXT weekend.

Anyway, here's the pics
All pics can be found in my Desoto gallery
http://vorhese.com/gallery/album265

Fresh clean parts


New u-bolts, greased bearings


Backing plate


Assembled, and the tool I made for shoe adjusting.


Drum