j_martin

Noticed a little brake smell when I got home. Checked the brakes with an infrared temp gauge and found the left rear drum was hot. I did the brakes about 5000 miles ago.

Pulled the rear brakes down, and the only thing I can see wrong is the self adjuster fjinger is slightly below parallel with the adjuster barrel. On the good side, it's completely parallel.

I noticed when I backed off the star wheel that I had to back it off about 40 or 50 notches to get the shoes free of the drum. It had significant drag. I backed it off twenty swings of the spoon and it still had a firm drag. Very smooth and not out of round at all. Twenty more swings and it came free. It seems a little mushy to me. Brake pedal seems a bit low also. Pressure purged and bled them when I did the brakes. RWAL is gone.

Drum is smooth, downright pretty, and not over-sized more than a few thousandths. Shoes on the left side are worn a noticeable amount more than the right side. Both sides have a lot of lining left.

Is it possible that the shoes are somehow out of spec and causing more travel and thus over adjusting on the left side, or is it just that the adjuster cable is done.

BILTIT

Everytime i have had a drum dragging it was the parking brake cable that caused the problem. I have had to replace them twice in three years.

j_martin

Parking brake cable function is perfect.

bobva

I had a old dodge dart years ago the RR brake would tighten up on me.

adjusted the screw twice replaced it on the 3rd time

http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/Ca...569_0094772845

NJTman

Ditto.. my experience exactly.

If the adjuster cable is gone, what's preventing the star wheel from spinning each time you apply the brakes ?

bigragu

How does an adjuster cable go, w/o physically snapping/ downright cut in half? Curious on this one! Is this something that could happen say to the foot pedal on fuel, that is, go bad w/o physically breaking? Or the transmission shift cable? Please explain so that I can check for that possibility on my rig

j_martin

It seems to be stretched a bit is all.

I've decided to replace all the hardware, that is put in brake shoe hardware kits and adjuster kits. I will also replace the wheel cylinders. The high performance shoes seem to be about 75-80% so I'll put them back in. Bought a cheap set of BrakeBest shoes to throw in the emergency road repair kit.

Will look over the left side brake line for a kink.

BILTIT

I had to replace all the hardware plus the brake adjuster tension cable? They had stretched and eventually broke.

I have had an E-brake cable sieze, also have had the foot that holds it against the back side of the backing plate give out and push through the backing plate.

BearKiller

It is possible for the inside layer of the rubber flex line to separate from the outer layers; thus, when you release the pedal, the inside layer sucks together, in effect becoming a check-valve of sorts, preventing complete release of the brakes, until such time that the created line vacuum relaxes and allows the trapped fluid-pressure to escape.

In such a situation, the wheel closest to the flex line is the one most likely to drag.

Many front calipers have been discarded when the real culprit was a separated flex line.

j_martin

Well, I found a few things.
The e-brake lever was not very free on it's pin/bushing. I took it all apart, hit the bushing with emery cloth and WD 40 to remove the rust. Put it back together with a new adjuster cable and lubed up with SilGlide.

The top tab on the rear brake shoe wasn't quite tall enough to properly engage the e-brake lever. It looks like the lever was skipping over the top some and binding. I changed out the wheel cylinder just in case it was binding.

It got down to about 25 degrees last night. I had left the brake drums out on the grass, inner end down with a cover over the outer end. There was so much condensation in them over night that the grease residue was cloudy, and the drum inside was all wet and rusting. I knocked the inner bearings out and cleaned them, and ordered seals.

I've found that O'Reilys rocks when it comes to parts for older cars. Nobody in town had the spindle nut wedges except the Dodge ***********. They wanted 8.95 apiece for them. O'reily got em in in 4 hours at 1.49 They also got in an Edelmann 3/16" x 9/16-20 brake control T in 4 hours.

mknittle

I have had real good luck with our local O'Reily's

j_martin

I've had counter help get lost even if you hand them the part number. I talked to the main man who was working the counter yesterday. He said this particular store has a huge inventory, so most item asked for are on the shelf. He said five deliveries daily doesn't hurt either. The two items he didn't have were in the warehouse. I ordered at 11:30 and picked them up at 4:00

NJTman

There aren't any stores in the NE, as seen in their store locator.


What up ?


Nearest is VA or MASS for me.

j_martin

They've been expanding from a core in Missouri. They do sell off the web page direct to customers.

BearKiller

For future reference, spindle nylock nuts and lock-keys for Fords with Danas are the same as Dodge; I have found Ford dealership parts to usually be less expensive than Chrysler/Dodge.

That being said, when I am replacing spindle-nuts, I always buy the earlier hard steel double-nut/tab-washer style; they will outlast several trucks, whereas the soft steel nylocks will barely outlast a set of brakes.