Cracked brake shoe

[WhiteBurb]

I was doing some maintenance over the weekend, rotating tires, inspecting brakes and such. Anyways, one of the brake shoes was cracked, the friction material. Everything seemed to be adjusted right.
Any ideas on what might have caused this? I'm thinking they were just poorly made el cheapos.

 

[k5floyd]

i had this happen to me one time on one side with brand new shoes. cept mine did more then crack. they broke into a bunch of peices. had to turn the drum after it too. put they same brand in again and everything was fine. dunno what would cause it.

 

[4X4HIGH]

Cracked brake linings are the result of overheated brakes.

 

[4xcrazy]

Yeah, what he said, very hot brakes,,,also i found out with my rear disk conversion, if you overheat those to the extreme, where they are crackling, ticking and smoking,,, when they cool down, it eats up the wheel seals

 

[WhiteBurb]

Overheated brakes? Maybe a bad cylinder? It doesn't seem like the brakes are grabbing at all. It might have a slight drag that I don't notice though.

 

[73k5blazer]

Do you use your parking brake? If so, mabey it's starting to stick a little.