I was rotating my tires today and when i went to inspect the rear shoes, i noticed the pads had developed fatigue fractures at the bosses for the rivets. What might cause this? My thaught is that maybe the frame that the pads are mounted to isnt that strong and its flexing and causing the pads to crack. The drums look ok but i havn't measured their inner dia. yet, ill do that when its light out. Id like to get some thaughts on this before i chock it up to garbage parts and replace them ( the pads are manufactured by raybestos, btw).

 

That's real common, nothing to worry about really, unless they start making chattering noises.

 

one more thaught on this is... Those pads always squealed like hell whenever id hit the brakes. This might be another possible explanation for why they may have cracked. Possibly the standing waves set up in the pad caused the cracks to form at the rivets since that part of the pad isnt alowed to move. The cracks appear at every hole and especially on that side, which was also the side that squealed the worst. IIRC the steel frames they use for those are actually recycled gm cores so i dont know if flexing was the cause. The pads look like they have pretty even wear all around but i guess ill know if its the drums when i measure them. Maybe theyre out of round or something...

 

your post made it in ahead of mine. Im kina worried since the cracks pass complety through the pads and im afraid of them getting loose.

 

Mine did that, most of them do. I replaced my raybestos shoes with Wagner shoes from CarQuest, the Wagner ones don't have the bolt holes in them. So far they've been in for about 7000 miles and no cracks

 

i took a closer look and the rivets actually allowed the pad to move on the shoe and thats what caused it to come apart. I guess bonded instead of riveted ones are the way to go.