Re: Brakes

Posted by David Dewey on September 07, 1998 at 01:31:15

In Reply to: Re: Brakes
posted by Pat Patterson on September 06, 1998 at 22:55:31

Pat
There is more to the A brake system than just arcing the shoes to the drums. The system relies on a system of rollers, pins and tracks to activate and center the shoes. Unfortunately, the design actually requires the pins to revolve in the opposite direction as the rollers, and what usually happens is the pins don't revolve, but just slide alont the tracks. The trackswear down, as does the pin's head, and then the shoes don't center.
The repro people will sell you new track, but they are of unknown materials, and rebuilding the tracks on the backing plate isn't that hard now-a-days, with the dremel tool handy! You weld the tracks up, grind them to the proper shape, lightly heat-treat them, use good pins & rollers, and then center the shoes (takes a special tool, but not hard to build!)
With good parts, and proper brake rod adjustment, the brakes will slide tires! BTW, I find the shoes themselves often are slightly straightened out, a little trip to the hydraulic press can fix that (until they're stretched out again!! What I like about the mechanical brakes is; they are as good (or bad) when I take the car out of the garage as they were when I put it in there some time ago. Hydraulics tend to have problems when they sit around.
--David D. (about an hour +1/2 north of Sacramento)