Has anyone converted from disc brakes to drum?

Just had one tractor go 507K on the first pads and the rotors are still in spec. Most go 4-450K and about the same on the trailers. A little less when the tractor is drum brakes but most of the O/O's have changed to discs

 

Most days we were diff deep in mud. Especially if the graders couldn't keep with grading the haul roads.

 

Don't do off road but can't see the difference between the drums filling with grit or getting some on the rotor.
You can have covers over either one.

 

I remember un-decking some new Freightliners in the early 80s that had them. I have no experience with them, but I remember that they weren't seen in new trucks for a long time after that. I assume the first ones were quite problematic.

 

I was never able to find backing plate and spiders that would change over.
Old disc brakes were really bad as was 721 brakes ( 7 to 1 they will fail ). The little bit of these new disc brakes here are doing well.

 

Covers do not stop that. Covers off drums lets the slop out. A disc with the air space in the middle can pack with mud. When the mud did not pack all the way around and or flung out of half the rotor it caused a vibration. I do not expect most folks to have that problem.

 

Just wondering, as already mentioned about being that deep in mud, why doesn't the drum brakes get affected but the disc brakes do?

 

I think it's the direction they face.

 

Hydraulic disc on a medium duty truck loaded up with a service body and all the tools isn’t an apple to apple comparison to heavy duty air disc

 

Anyone else old enough to remember driving tractors that didn’t have brakes AT ALL on the steer axle ?