Now that I've passed the hurtle of getting the rear drums off, I expect (notice I didn't say 'assume') to have little difficulty in assessing the condition of the brakes and cleaning and adjusting the working parts back to spec. The weak effectiveness and somewhat soft peddle I suspect will eventually be traced back to the master cylinder. Anyway, while I have the drums off, I thought it might be a good idea to clean them well and perhaps paint them to minimize future rust damage. A while back I seem to recall seeing a thread either here or elsewhere about a good technique for cleaning brake and suspension parts and painting them where appropriate. Anyone have any suggestions? I couldn't find much in the archives and ended up looking through the Eastwood and Crosswell (?) websites. Both companies have lots of interesting sounding albeit expensive solutions. What I remember was a technique based on common everyday tools and inexpensive cleaners. Also, if I proceed down this route, what type and color of paint would have been used in '56 on brake drums from the factory? Black? Grey? Thanks, Jeff '56 Sedan Trenton, NJ ----------------- http://www.imperialclub.com ----------------- This message was sent to you by the Imperial Mailing List. Please reply to mailing-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and your response will be shared with everyone. Private messages (and attachments) for the Administrators should be sent to webmaster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To UN-SUBSCRIBE, go to http://imperialclub.com/unsubscribe.htm