Mike:

Most of the friction pad on the driver's side rear shoe was totally gone. The cylinder back there is leaking too. That is probably what destroyed the brake shoe.

I bought the car last fall from the original owner, an octogenarian. My guess is that he didn't drive the car much over the last seven or eight years. Perhaps the friction surface on the shoe got saturated with brake fluid and became mushy. The drum looks to have a good deal of wall thickness but the car must have been driven with the padless shoe. The inner circumferance towards the open end of the drum is scored. A rough guess would be maybe 1/64" deep grooves.

I wanted to check here about dangers of putting the drum on a lathe before taking it to some stranger.

Thanks,

Joe M