Thread: Brake Booster riddle - can you solve it?

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Faith: I scoured all of your pictures to see if I could get a good look at your backing plates, and found none that were clear. What I was looking for was to see if you had '39 to '42 Ford backing plates, or '46 to '48 Ford backing plates.

How you tell the difference is that the early ones have four 3/4 inch socket sized adjustment bolts on the outside of the backing plate, and the later ones only have two.

I think I saw 4 in one picture, and that is what I have on my '27. If so, two of these are used for "minor" adjustments, and two are used for "major" adjustments. Brian will tell you that it takes some playing around to adjust these properly, because he posted a thread on this a while back.

I suspect that your brakes are not set up right, or adjusted properly.

Seriously, the brakes you have are fine for this weight of a rod. You just need to work out some of the bugs on it. They will never "feel" like your modern SUV you drive, but they are still very effective.

Don

Originally Posted by Itoldyouso

Faith: I scoured all of your pictures to see if I could get a good look at your backing plates, and found none that were clear.
Seriously, the brakes you have are fine for this weight of a rod. You
Don

Ask and you shall receive

Is this photo what you needed?

Originally Posted by HiboyGal

Ask and you shall receive

Is this photo what you needed?

The long shoe needs to be in front on early Ford non-engizing brakes -this looks to be backwards to me - also looks like only the top is hitting the drum.
Turn 'em around and center properly by means of the bottom pivot eccentrics/adjusters and you should have acceptable brakes. Not a fun project....

I seem to remember they used to re-arc the shoes but doubt anyone does that anymore.

Originally Posted by cffisher

I seem to remember they used to re-arc the shoes but doubt anyone does that anymore.

Faith, find a shop that will grind the shoes to the radius of the drums. This is critical in your case.