Thread: Mr. Hiboy's brake system - PART 2

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You could be right, it's been 8 or 10 years since I did mine, and always got the two mixed up.

Don

On the original Ford brakes, the long shoe lining went to the front of the car. The shoes were both lined with the same material. Newer brakes have harder, smaller linings on the front shoes. So depending on the lining, yours may or may not be right.
They should be marked, P (primary) and S (secondary).

R Pope is correct. The longer shoe goes to the front on stock early Fords (39-42). These old Wagner-Lockheed brakes were non servo meaning that the front shoe did provided almost all the stopping power with the secondary short shoe doing very little.

The adjusting information is from an old issue of Street Rodder magazine and always worked for me when adjusting the brakes on my old 40 Merc.

This will be kind of long-winded, but is good information.

For major adjustments, back off the adjustment cam to bring the lining into contact with the drum until a slight drag is felt when turning the drum. Check lower scan for proper cam direction. Then rotate the forward shoe eccentric anchor pin until the brake drag is relieved. Check scanned pic for proper anchor direction. Keep repeating these steps in sequence until the brake drag CANNOT be relieved. The tighten the anchor lock nut. Relieve the brake drag at this point by backing off the cam adjustment. Once this is done correctly you probably will only have to do a minor adjustment to keep the brakes in proper adjustment.

For minor adjustments, spin the wheel while turning the adjusting cam in 5the proper direction (see Scanned photo) until a heavy drag is felt, then back cam off gradually until wheel spins freely.

Make sure you check the cams to be sure they haven't been damaged over the years.

Hope this helps,
Mick

The Ford drums are slotted so you can insert a .010" feeler gauge between the drum and shoe. With the Buick drums, you have to fake it. To set them by feel, turn both adjusters slowly until the same pressure is felt on both. Lock the bottom one there, and back the top one off just enough so the wheel turns free. From the look of the shoe on your other thread, the bottom adjusters were backed off some, causing only the top part of the shoe to contact the drum. Not real efficient, as you probably noticed.
Setting the brakes like I describe will cause a bit of premature wear on the bottom inch or so for a little while, until the shoes burn in, but the brakes will work as good as they can for all of that.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

I have printed out all your info and will digest it and assimilate it over the week-end. if there is a chance Sean and I (Jeff = Sean, his name is jeff, middle Sean, I call him both, sorry for confusion, just don't want you guys to think I have TWO boyfriends ) can try to adjust them ourselves, then I know I will get them perfect because I am anal retentive and very detail oriented and will not GIVE UP until it is set up best as it can. I doubt a regular mechanic will have that much patience .

And this way if I don't get it right the first time, i can always go back later and redo it, fine tuning some more. hehehehe...

[QUOTE=HiboyGal] Sean and I (Jeff = Sean, his name is jeff, middle Sean, I call him both, sorry for confusion, just don't want you guys to think I have TWO boyfriends


Oh sure Faith, we understand (wink wink wink) Sure, everybody has ONE boyfriend they call by TWO names.

Hey, we're all grown ups here, and this is the year 2006 (wink wink) As long as Jeff, Sean, understands this, who are we to judge?

(you little Rascal, you)


Don