61 Roadster

Whenever my 61 gets caught on wet roads, the brake dust causes ugly black streaks on the whitewalls. It seems to come mostly from the vented areas on the wheel covers. Great fun scrubbing them clean again

Did everyone have just have filthy white walls back when most 50's cars had white wall tires and these were daily drivers?

I wonder if the non vented 56-58 wheel covers are as prone to this?

Paul Drennan

Does your car still have the factory drum brakes? The dark brake residue you describe is a relatively modern age phenomenon that results from disc brakes and the more open wheel designs of today. Older drum systems usually held the dust inside of the drums until they were removed for service. That dust would have to escape the drums, travel across the backside of the wheel, through the wheel slots, and then out through the slots in your wheel covers. Quite a feat. I would suggest pulling your wheel covers and maybe the wheels also and give everything a good cleaning. Make sure you don't have a grease cap leaking. Also, you may want to put some fuel hose or whatever the factory used to put in the wheel slots to keep gravel from getting in the wheel covers. That may help control the dust. Chip.

61 Roadster

I have front discs and rear drums; There is more dust on the rear tires than the front, but all four produce dust on the white walls daily.

I will try the hose; good idea!

SDVette

Do you use tire dressing? That will attract dust.

Godholio

Tire dressing looks great for a little while, but down the road (no pun intended) it's awful.

Bleche White is great for cleaning up the whitewalls, but the warning about it being damaging to wheels is NO JOKE. I got a little over spray on some new aluminum wheels once and it took hours of work to get it cleaned up.

vetteLT193

The instructions say to put it on a dry tire but I always wet the wheel and tire well before using it. doing that pre wet method with a tire scrub brush works and eliminates the issue to damaging the wheels.

capevettes

Bleche White and a soapy Brillo works great to get them clean. I do not experience the brake dust on my 61 with stock hubcaps. You want brake dust, try the C6 Z06 Of course it stops alot better than the 61.

hedgehead

Simple green 50%.

61 Roadster

Based on Diamond back's recommendations; I only use Greased Lightning, water, a small nylon brush and old white t-shirts. They always clean up well.

The problem has been the brake dust.

Just tried Paul's idea of fitting some rubber tubing cut about 4" each to press into the steel wheel vents on the rear; I've heard that's how it was done at the factory. We'll see if there is a discernible reduction in brake dust on the white walls. In theory, most of the dust should stay toward the inner tire wall.

Not sure if they will stay in place or not. Wheel flex might loosen them

Thanks to everyone; I'll update after some driving time next week

RatDog

Same thing with the C6 Grand Sport. I have to clean the chrome aluminum wheels on my wife's car every time it's driven. But it's easy enough to wipe down and the tires are black so no whitewall issues.

Not much of a brake dust problem on my '67's whitewalls with bolt ons. When the whitewalls get dirty, I clean them with Simple Green.

-- Steve

ohiovet

My 62 with old Torque Thrust wheels shows no signs of brake dust with standard shoe brakes.
My 65 disc brake car has no brake dust either and no full hubcaps.
It could be a function of the type of pads you are using.
Some pads are very dusty and others are not dusty at all.

Gary's '66

with ohiovet. My wheels used to be covered with reddish brake dust every time I drove the car, plus they squeaked at slow speed so I switched to an organic pad. While I get a little brake dust, which is to be expected, its NOTHING compared to the old pads. Squeaks are history as well.

SDVette

I think you guys are right about the new compounds.

My car sat for 40 years.. when I rebuilt the brake system, the shoes looked almost new, so I left the 40+ year old shoes on. I have never even seen a spot of brake dust in 1000 miles.

Probably the asbestos

stratplus

I have a fair amount of break dust on my 60 with DB's. I use 409 and a 3m scubbie and that works well.

63redvette

Ditto Original 1963 brake drums and shoes, no dust; I just carry that Mesothelioma lawyers card around with me in case I need it when I have to change them later.