Originally posted by BruceBrown
...do you think the Arai drum brake would take enough pressure off of the front to curtail the squealing?
Not really. If you're front brake is making noise it is, in essence, screaming for attention. You might experiment with a different 26" front wheel off of another bike to see if you can eliminate the rim as the catalyst for the noise. In other words, if you don't hear the squeal with a different rim you'll at least know that it's the combination of that rim and those brake shoes. If you still have the squeal you can dismiss the rim.
I just finished troubleshooting a "creaking" headset/fork/wheel using parts substitution and determined that the skewer was the source of the noise instead of the headset, fork or hub. It was a welcome relief to know that instead of being the $500 fork, hub bearings or a stem it was only the $35 skewer.